llillllilii;:illi!! 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SERIES 
For  Schools  and  Training  Colleges 


THE  MAKING  OF  CHARACTER 


p. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •   BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  -   SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 

MAKING  OF  CHARACTER 

SOME   EDUCATIONAL   ASPECTS 
OF   ETHICS 


BY 

JOHN    MAcCUNN,    M.A.,    LL.D. 

BALLIOL  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 
PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE,  LIVERPOOL 


REVISED  AND  REWRITTEN  WITH  NEW  CHAPTERS 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON :   MACMILLAN   &  CO.,  LTD. 
I92O 

All  rights  reserved 


• 


COPYRIGHT,  1900,  1913, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  March,  1900. 
Reprinted  January,  1907;  January,  1908;  August, 
1910;  March,  1913;  December,  1916. 

New  Edition,  September,  1913. 


ISTortooati 

J.  8.  Cashing  Co.  —Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE   TO   SIXTH    IMPRESSION 

r  I  ^HIS  impression  contains  three  new  chapters  on 
•*•  Natural  Inequality,  The  Economy  of  Human  Powers, 
and  Punishment.  The  chapter  on  Capacities,  Instincts, 
Desires  has  been  expanded  by  a  fuller  treatment  of 
Pleasures  and  Pains ;  and  that  on  Development  and 
Repression  by  a  more  adequate  discussion  of  Asceticism. 
There  are  also  a  few  lesser  additions  and  some  re- 
arrangements. 


CONTENTS 

PART   I 

CONGENITAL  ENDOWMENT:  ITS  NATURE 
AND    TREATMENT 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

HEREDITY 1 

CHAPTER  II 
NATURAL  INEQUALITY 7 

CHAPTER  III 
TEMPERAMENT 13 

CHAPTER  IV 
CAPACITIES,  INSTINCTS,  DESIRES 22 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  ECONOMY  OF  HUMAN  POWERS      ....  .40 

CHAPTER  VI 
DEVELOPMENT  AND  REPRESSION 45 

CHAPTER  VII 
HABIT  AND  ITS  LIMITATIONS  54 


PART   II 

EDUCATIVE  INFLUENCES 

CHAPTER  I 

ENVIRONMENT        .  

vii 


viii  Contents 

CHAPTER   II 

PAGE 

BODILY  HEALTH 73 

CHAPTER  III 
MR.  SPENCER'S  DOCTRINE  OF  NATURAL  REACTIONS  ...      80 

CHAPTER  IV 

WORDSWORTHIAN   EDUCATION   OF  NATURE 89 

CHAPTER  V 
FAMILY,  SCHOOL,  FRIENDSHIP 101 

CHAPTER  VI 
LIVELIHOOD 117 

CHAPTER  VII 
CITIZENSHIP 124 

CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  RELIGIOUS  ORGANISATION 128 

CHAPTER   IX 
SOCIAL  INFLUENCES  AND  UNITY  OF  CHARACTER       .       .       .134 

CHAPTER  X 

EDUCATIONAL  VALUE  OF  MORAL  IDEALS    .  .        .        .    139 

CHAPTER  XI 
PUNISHMENT 148 

CHAPTER  XII 
EXAMPLE 159 


Contents  ix 

CHAPTER  XIII 

PAGE 

PRECEPT 178 

CHAPTER  XIV 
CASUISTRY 186 

PART   III 

SOUND  JUDGMENT 

CHAPTER   I 
SOUND  MORAL  JUDGMENT 202 

CHAPTER  II 
THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENT       ....    217 

CHAPTER   III 
GROWTH  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL'S  IDEAL 225 

CHAPTER   IV 
PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  A  THEORY  OF  THE  MORAL  IDEAL  .        .    233 

PART   IV 

SELF-DEVELOPMENT  AND  SELF-CONTROL 

CHAPTER   I 
SELF-DEVELOPMENT .        .    239 

CHAPTER  II 
SELF-CONTROL        .  248 


PART  I 

CONGENITAL  ENDOWMENT:   ITS  NATURE  AND 
TREATMENT 

CHAPTER  I 

HEREDITY 

IT  has  been  reserved  for  our  democratic  generation  to  give 
a  new  life  to  the  fast  perishing  faith  in  pedigrees. 
It  writes,  it  preaches,  it  talks,  it  thinks  biologic-   HereditjT?s° 
ally ;  and  with  the  result  among  others  that  the   generally 
idea  of  Heredity  has  been  lodged  beyond  dis- 
placing in  the  mind  even  of  the  average  man.     Thus  rooted  it 
has  its  applications,  and  of  these  there  are  at  any  rate  two 
which  intimately  concern  the  making  of  character. 

One  is  that  the  old  familiar  metaphor  of  the  pure  white 
sheet  of  paper,  so  often  in  times  past  invoked  in 
the  interests  of  educational  responsibility,  must  thaVwfcannot 
now  be  decently  and  finally  laid  to  rest.     Psy-  in  Education 
chology  knows  nothing  of  absolute  beginnings, 
Everywhere  its  analysis  strikes  on  existing  pre- 
formations,  and  if  the  old  metaphor  is. to  survive  at  all,  it  must 
be  by  saying  that  the  page  of  the  youngest  life  is  so  far  from 
being  blank  that  it  bears  upon  it  characters  in  comparison  with 


2  Heredity 

which  the  faded  ink  of  palaeography  is  as  recent  history.  So 
that,  by  general  consensus,  the  first  step  towards  the  making  of 
character  is  the  recognition  of  beginnings  that  have  been  already 
made. 

Hence,  as  further  result,  the  growth  of  a  new  educational 

motive.     When   a  father  knows   that  his  boy 

an  addecHnte-      inherits  tendencies,  none  the  less  definite  because 

rest  to  educa-      possibly  hidden  even  from  the  eye  of  affection, 

tionalwork.  / 

there  is  no  loss  of  responsibility  here.  There  is 
the  enhanced  responsibility  to  be  for  ever  on  the  watch,  as 
there  is  with  the  gardener  who  watches  his  seedlings,  or  the 
farmer  his  stock.  Just  because  none  of  them  know  what  is 
going  to  happen,  just  because  the  tender  plant,  animal,  child, 
may  at  any  moment  unfold  unsuspected  tendencies,  so  must 
there  devolve  upon  those  to  whose  care  they  are  entrusted  the 
obligation  of  an  unintermitting  watchfulness.  It  is  in  fact 
precisely  this  that  imparts  to  education  so  much  of  its  fasci- 
nating interest.  Moulding  the  clay  or  hewing  the  block  (well- 
worn  metaphors  !)  is  dull  work  in  comparison.  For  education, 
and  especially  the  education  of  character,  would  lose  half  its 
interest  if,  as  some  have  fancied,  education  were  everything. 
It  is  interesting  just  because  it  is  not  everything,  because,  in 
other  words,  the  youngest  child  is  already  old  in  proclivities 
whose  manifestation  is  often  the  first  sign  to  us  of  their  existence. 
Nor  does  either  this  responsibility  or  this  interest  limit 
itself  to  our  dealings  with  the  young.  Inherited 

Tendencies 

may  be  in-          tendencies,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  need  by  no 

a7thoeudgh  their        meanS  aPPear  a11  at  OnCe'      Llke  the  SCeds  °f  a11 

manifestation  hereditary  malady,  they  may  lie  latent  for  many 
a  year,  and  are  none  the  less  inherited  though 
their  manifestation  is  deferred.  It  is  the  source  of  many  a 
surprise  and  many  a  disappointment.  The  "ugly  duckling" 
becomes  the  swan :  the  cygnet  too  becomes  the  duck.  And> 
so  it  will  continue  to  be,  so  long  as  these  deferred  instincts 
have  to  wait  upon  physiological  development,  upon  favouring 


Heredity  3 

environment,  or  upon  simple  lapse  of  time,  to  bring  them  at 
last  to  light.  It  is  difficult  to  set  limits  to  this.  There  are 
cases  of  men  who  seem  to  develop  in  comparatively  late  life 
belated  tastes  —  tastes  for  travel  or  society  or  art  or  sport  — 
which  persistently  struggle  through,  though  they  may  have 
been  inhibited  for  half  a  lifetime.  We  are  apt  to  call  such 
tastes  acquired,  attributing  them  to  the  influences  of  environ- 
ment which  have  been  so  long  at  work  before  they  make  their 
appearance.  Yet  the  proclivity  may  have  been  there  from  the 
first.  We  may  at  least  suspect  it  was,  because  it  often  seems 
to  survive  much  discouragement,  and  because  we  are  often 
able  when  it  appears  to  identify  it  as  a  family  trait  long  hidden 
but  revealed  at  last. 

Thus  far  then,  'it  may  with  confidence  be  said  that  the  idea 
of  heredity  is  practically  fruitful.  It  brings  this  enhanced 
responsibility,  and  this  added  interest  into  all  educational 
work. 

It  is  another  matter  when  we  go  beyond  this,  and  ask  if 
what  is  known  about  Heredity  can  justify  hopes 
that  we  can  ascertain,  otherwise  than   by  the   Heredity  fu". 
actual  watching  of  those  with  whom  we  have  ther  suggests 

,      ,         ,  .     .  '     i          j  •        the  value  of  a 

to   deal,  what  their  congenital  endowment   is.   knowledge  of 


And  we  may  reduce  this  question  to  its  most 

practical  terms  by  asking  if  it  is  of  real  moment 

to  study  stock  and  parentage,  in  order  that  we  may  better 

discern  the  endowment  of  the  child. 

There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  something  can  be 
done  in  this  directiom  Supposing  ourselves  able  to  arrive 
at  trustworthy  knowledge  of  the  characteristics  not  only  of 
parentage  but  of  stock,  we  stand  at  an  undoubted  advantage. 
For  when  we  detect  some  trait  emerging  which  we  know  to 
have  had  a  masterful  influence  upon  the.  family  history  —  be 
it  love  of  adventure,  or  of  money,  or  of  ease,  or  of  fighting,  and 
so  forth  —  we  can  understand  that  we  are  in  presence  of  a 
proclivity  that  will  tax  all  our  resources.  We  may  thus  find  an 


4  Heredity 

index  as  to  the  lines  upon  which  we  have  to  watch  and  work. 
It  may  be  granted  further  that  our  knowledge  of  ancestry  will 
bear  the  fruit  of  all  genuine  knowledge.  It  will  sharpen  our 
perceptions  by  giving  us  "  pre-perceptions. "  It  will  enable  us, 
by  knowing  what  to  look  for,  to  detect  the  first  tiny  shoots  of 
congenital  proclivity  as  soon  as  they  break  the  soil,  and  to  lay 
our  plans  accordingly.  In  this  way  knowledge  of  stock  and 
parentage  may  work  in  helpful  alliance  with  observation. 

Yet  it  is  safest  here  not  to  expect  too  much.     The  con- 
Yet  belief  in      viction  that  every  new  life  inherits  much  is 
Heredity  need      entirely  consistent  with  the   contention    that 

not  involve  ,  ,     ,  ..  ,  ,  . 

much  conn-  knowledge  of  stock  and  parentage,  even  much 
dence  in  the  fuller  and  more  carefully  generalised  than  seems 

practical  value  *  ° 

of  such  know-  possible  for  those  whose  ends  are  practical,  can 
ledge'  furnish  but  an  imperfect  clue  as  to  what  we  may 

expect  to  find  in  the  individual  boy  or  girl,  even  when  these 
are  of  our  own  household.  This  for  quite  definite  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  not,  in  the  present  stage  of 
For  i  The  controversy,  entitled  to  treat  the  habits  a  father 
transmission  or  mother  has  formed  during  lifetime,  be  they 
ch^Tteristics  virtues  or  vices,  as  indicative  of  what  the  child 
is  still  doubt-  is  to  inherit.  Too  many  of  the  preachers  and 
teachers  of  our  day,  over  eager  to  impress  Science 
into  the  service  of  edification,  have  caught  at  the  doctrine  that 
the  acquired  characteristics  of  one  generation  become,  by 
inheritance,  the  instincts  of  the  next.  It  may  be  so.  Habitual 
skill  with  chisel,  pencil,  or  piano,  habitual  temperance  or 
immoderation,  thrift  or  prodigality,  may  thus  be  transmitted 
in  ways  we  cannot  trace.  But  we  really  cannot  be  said  to 
know.  The  evidence  is  inconclusive.  We  seem  powerless  to 
adduce  a  single  conclusive  instance.  What  we  actually  know 
is  that  this  whole  question  of  the  transmission  of  "acquired 
characters "  is  open,  and  vigorously  argued  by  Lamarckians 
and  Weismannians.  Till  they  settle  their  differences,  results 
are  too  uncertain  to  be  made  the  basis  of  responsible  action. 


Heredity  5 

When  we  pass  to  the  other  qualities  —  the  qualities  handed 
on  from  generation  to  generation  irrespective 
of  the  life-acquisitions  of  individuals  —  we  are  other  qualities 
in  a  sense  upon  surer  ground.     It  will  not  now-   ar.e  trans- 
adays  be  denied  that  such  transmission  is  a 
fact.     Even  primitive  tribesmen  recognised  it  in  their  flocks 
and  herds;   and  the  reappearance   in  sons  of  family  traits 
has  long  been  one  of  the  stock  themes  of  popular  remark  and 
conversation.     It  appears  to  be  scientifically  well  established 
in  regard  to  inherited  physical  constitution.     It  need  not  be 
doubted  in  the  region  of  temperament  (especially  emotional 
temperament),  capacity  and  instinct. 

Yet  this  fact  is  of  less  practical  value  than  might  at  a  first 
glance  appear.     It  is  only  necessary  to  set  ourselves  to  study 
any  given  family  history  to  meet  the  initial  difficulty  of  dis- 
criminating what  is  inherent  in  the  stock  and  transmissible, 
from   what  is  acquired  in  the  lifetime  of  individuals  and  (it 
may  be)  not  transmissible.    Even  if  this  difficulty,  and  it  is  not 
slight,  could  be  overcome,  the  knowledge  of  what  is  inherent 
in  the  stock  could  not  with  much  confidence  be  made  the 
basis  of  action.     For  Nature  is  wayward.     Marvellously  con- 
servative though  she  be  in  passing  on  qualities 
from  generation  to  generation,  she  yet  strangely  -ties  of  parents 
loves  to  hide  from  our  eyes  her  ways  of  working,   appear'in't'he 
Thus   the   congenital  tendencies  of   a   father,    nextgenera- 
though  they  be  pronounced  and  unmistakable, 
need  by  no  means  reappear  in  the  son.     They  may  go  under 
for  generations,  and  only  reappear  in  children's  children.    Add 
to  this  that  children  may  manifest  unexpected  qualities  of  their 
own.     For  in  any  given  child  we  may,  to  an  extent  not  easy 
to  limit,  find  ourselves    confronted    by  those 
"sports,"  those  variations  small  or  great  from 
the  ancestral  stock,  of  which  so  little  seems  to  be  variations  from 
known,  except  that  they  are  many  and  incalcu-   stock"" 
lable.     Rare  gifts,  both  of  mind  and  disposition, 


6  Heredity 

may  thus  break  the  crust  of  unlikely  soils,  and  inexplicable, 
lamentable  perversions  seem  to  give  the  lie  to  the  most 
excellent  of  ancestries.  Not  without  their  lessons.  The  one 
surprise  tells  us  never  rashly  to  despair  of  the  progeny  even  of 
the  worst.  The  other  warns  us  never  to  lull  ourselves  into  a 
careless  confidence  in  the  progeny  even  of  the  best.  Both 
forbid  us,  however  firm  our  faith  in  Heredity,  to  see  a  prophecy 
of  the  son  in  the  parent.  And  both  remind  us  that  precon- 
ceptions based  on  study  of  stock  and  parentage  may  betray  us 
into  the  fatal  errors  of  foregone  conclusions  in  regard  to  the 
young  lives  we  have  to  deal  with. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  the  genealogical  tree  of  every  son 

And  each          °*  man  Droa(^ens  out,  as  we  ascend  it,  into  a 

child  possibly       quite  limitless  host  of  ancestral  kindred.     It  is 

bewildering         not  necessary  for  our  argument  to  ascend  very 

multitude  of         far.    Ten  or  twenty  generations  will  suffice.  For 

tendencies.  .,  .    ••  -         .       .,        -    .,, 

even  then,  precisely  as  we  are  firm  in  the  faith 
that  ancestral  traits  persist,  so  must  our  anticipations  of  the 
inherited  endowment  of  any  individual  multiply;  if  indeed  we 
do  not  sink  bewildered  in  presence  of  the  number  of  accumu- 
lated possibilities  of  the  small  final  product,  in  whose  veins 
runs  blood,  mixed  in  ways  subtler  than  chemical  combination, 
by  the  intermarriage  of  hundreds  or  thousands  of  families. 
"The  blessings  of  a  good  parentage,"  Dr  Maudsley  assures 

Hence  it  us>  w^  ^°  more  f°r  a  man  in  *ne  trials  and 

seems  safer  to  crises  of  life,  "in  the  hour  of  death,"  he  says, 

knowledge  of  "and  in  the  day  of  judgment  than  all  that  has 

congenital  en-  been  taught  him  by  his  pastors  and  masters."1 

dowment  upon  * 

direct  observa-     The  words  are,  of  course,  as  controvertible  as 

they  are  sweeping.     They  obviously  carry  with 

them  a  startling  estimate  of  the  influence  of  what  is  congenital 

upon  the  rest  of  a  man's  life.     But,  even  were  they  true,  many 

1  Physiology  of  Mind,  p.  367. 

A  full  discussion  of  Heredity  will  be  found  in  Ribot's  Heredity  (H.  S. 
King  and  Co.).    Cf.  also  Lloyd  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct,  c.  XV. 


Natural  Inequality  7 

a  large  gap  in  knowledge  would  have  to  be  filled  before  they 
could  be  made  to  yield  a  justifiable  expectation  that  the  study 
of  stock  and  parentage  is  a  trustworthy  path  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  concrete  child.  For  even  if  we  believed  that  all  that  is 
congenital  must  be  inherited1,  the  belief  would  not  dispel  the 
difficulties  still  to  be  overcome  before  we  could  predict  with 
confidence  what  the  inheritance  in  a  given  concrete  case  is 
likely  to  be.  And  so  long  as  this  is  so,  it  would  seem  the 
more  practical  course  to  look,  for  our  knowledge  of  the  con- 
genital endowment  of  those  we  have  to  educate,  less  to  what 
we  can  glean  about  their  ancestry  than  to  what,  by  direct 
observation,  we  can  learn  about  the  young  lives  themselves. 

CHAPTER  II 

NATURAL  INEQUALITY 

THE  fact  that  meets  us  on  the  threshold  here  is  inequality. 
This  is  only  what  one  might  expect.  When, 
ancestry  is  endlessly  diverse;  when  variations, 
sometimes  for  better,  sometimes  for  worse,  appear 
even  in  households  where  they  are  least  looked  for ;  when 
widely  dissimilar  environments  prescribe  the  conditions,  ad- 
verse or  favouring,  under  which  young  lives  first  look  out 
upon  the  world,  it  would  be  against  all  reason  to  expect  any- 
thing but  inequality.  And,  in  this  case,  what  we  expect  is 
also  what  we  find.  Are  not  the  boys  or  girls  on  the  same 
school-bench,  are  not  even  the  children  of  a  common  home 
unequal — unequal  in  vital  energy,  in  temperament,  in  capacities, 
in  instincts?  Few  and  feeble  proclivities,  torpid  feelings  that 
are  the  despair  of  the  educator  lie.  at  the  one  extreme  :  at  the 
other,  a  rich  endowment  of  gift  and  promise,  and  a  faculty  of 
response  that  perplexes  by  its  many-sidedness.  Between,  an 
almost  endless  scale.  Nor  is  the  full  extent  of  these  inequalities 

1 A  statement  not  too  rashly  to  be  accepted. 


8  Natural  Inequality. 

manifest  all  at  once  in  early  years.  Time  the  revealer  is 
needed  to  reveal  it.  Not  all  the  inequalities  that  emerge  as 
the  years  go  on  are  to  be  set  down  to  education.  Far  other- 
Education  w^se-  For  whatever  be  the  inequalities  of  its 
reveals  the  Own  making  for  which  education  is  responsible, 

natural  ,..         .          ,  ,  ...  ... 

inequalities  it  is  likewise  the  revealer  of  inequalities,  con- 
of  men-  genital  inequalities,  for  which  it  is  not  responsible. 

Assuredly  of  all  doctrines  ever  fathered  by  serious  thinkers,  the 
dogma  of  the  natural  equality  of  men  is  amongst  the  least  tenable. 

It  is,  in  fact,  just  because  these  natural  inequalities  are  so 
pronounced  that  it  is  sometimes  taken  to  be  the 
oneveemngyuP.  peculiar  task  of  education  to  level  up.  The 
naturally  gifted  are  supposed  to  be  in  no  danger 
of  neglect,  or  even  to  be  able  to  take  care  of  themselves;  and 
it  is  regarded  as  the  peculiar  task  of  education  to  redress  the 
inequalities  of  nature  by  making  average  mediocrity,  and  even 
conspicuous  defect,  its  peculiar  case.  Witness  the  volume  of 
effort  that  has  of  recent  years  been  directed  upon  elementary 
and  technical  education,  upon  provision  for  the  physically  and 
mentally  and  morally  defective,  even  upon  the  reclamation  of 
the  criminal. 

Nor  is  this  movement  motived  merely  by  sympathy  and 
The  value  compassion.  It  rests  on  a  surer  and  more  rational 
of  the  foundation.  For  it  is  precisely  one  of  the  most 

deeply-rooted  characteristics  of  our  western 
civilisation  to  have  come  to  convictions  as  to  the  worth,  the 
potential  worth  at  all  events,  not  only  of  the  average  man 
but  even  of  the  feebler  specimens  who  drop  far  below  the 
average  level.  These  are  not  by  any  means  the  convictions  of 
theorists  only,  far  less  of  visionaries.  On  the  contrary  they  lie 
deep  in  the  popular  consciousness  because  they  have  taken 
root  in  institutions  :  in  Law,  which  hedges  about  by  its  in- 
violable circle  the  weakest  and  the  humblest  of  the  sons  of 
men ;  in  the  churches,  which,  alike  in  teaching  and  in  action, 
have  always  stood  for  the  worth  of  the  individual  soul  even 
when  in  the  eye  of  the  world  it  may  be  "  worthless ";  in 


Natural  Inequality  9 

organized  philanthropic  effort,  which  lavishes  care  and  money 
upon  the  dregs  of  the  population;  and,  we  may  add,  in 
political  development  which  has  now  for  some  time  been 
exalting  the  claims  of  the  poor,  the  neglected,  the  struggling 
to  their  share  in  the  benefits  of  the  democratic  State. 

These  convictions,  thus  sponsored,  may  of  course  be  held 
on  various  grounds.  They  may  be  an  article  of  a  religious 
creed  accepted  on  authority ;  they  may  be  simply  intuitions 
of  the  heart  and  conscience;  or  they  may  be  justified  of 
philosophy  by  a  searching  investigation  into  the  nature, 
capacities  and  destinies  of  man.  For  it  stands  without  saying 
that  the  ascription  of  this  unique  value  to  even  the  least  and 
the  lowliest  is  just  one  of  those  central  problems  to  which 
philosophy  is  bound  to  address  itself.  The  solutions  of  course 
vary.  They  must  vary  so  long  as  idealism  diverges  from 
utilitarianism  and  both  from  naturalism1.  But  be  this  as  it 
may,  the  conviction  stands  firm  as  a  practical  belief  which 
has  become  the  basis  of  action  in  many  directions,  and  of 
these  education  is  one. 

Its  immediate  influence  here  is  far-reaching  and  decisive. 
For  once  it  be  granted  that  the  child  or  the  man 

**  Education 

whose  elevation  is  the  object  of  educational  recognises  the 
effort  has  this  peculiar  value,  forthwith  the  worth  of  man' 
whole  outlook  is  transformed.  The  physical  defects,  the 
undeveloped  powers,  the  stunted  capacities,  the  imperfect 
gifts,  the  poor  or  squalid  environment,  in  a  word  all  the 
characteristics  which  mark  the  less  favoured  amongst  life's 
children  cease  to  be  regarded  as  merely  things  to  be  deplored 
and  redressed.  Instead,  they  come  to  be  viewed  rather  as 
obstructions  which  hinder  the  human  spirit  from  making  the 
most  of  its  powers — obstructions  which,  in  the  name  of  the 
worth  even  of  the  "worthless,"  it  is  the  beneficent  task  of  educa- 
tion to  remove.  Nor  is  it  a  bad  description  of  the  province  of 
education  to  say  that  its  task  is  to  clear  away  the  obstructions 
that  thwart  and  frustrate  the  forward-struggling  spirit  of  man. 

1  See  "  The  justification  of  motives  to  social  work "  in  Addresses  on 
Ethics  of  Social  Work,  The  University  Press,  Liverpool,  1911. 


IO  Natural  Inequality 

This  will  be  clearer  when  we  come  in  the  sequel  to  see 
what  human  capacities  actually  are,  but  meanwhile  we  may 
wh   has  emphasize  the  point  by  asking  a  simple  question  : 

the  child  Why  has  any  child,  even  when  far  below  the 

average,  an  unmeasurably  stronger  claim  upon 


us  than  the  our    services    than   even    the    highest    of   the 

animals?  Why  is  it,  unless  because  we  find, 
even  in  the  least  favoured  of  the  human  race,  that  value, 
actual  or  potential,  for  which  we  may  search  long  and  in 
vain  even  in  the  aristocracy  of  the  animal  world.  For 
educational  work  at  its  best  is  never  motived  merely  by  social 
sympathy  however  strong,  but  by  social  sympathy  enlightened 
and  intensified  by  this  perception  of  the  worth  of  all  the 
objects  of  its  care. 

Hence  indeed  it  becomes  possible  to  speak  of  education, 
and  especially  on  its  moral  side,  as  if  its  whole 

Educational  ' 

effort  counter-      aim  was  to  counterwork  the  methods  of  Nature1. 
r     '*sur-         For  if  it:  be  Nature's  law  —  and  it  has  been  well 


vivai  of  the  dinned  into  our  ears  by  Darwinian  biologists  for 

the  last  half-century  —  that  the  strong  survive 
and  the  weak  succumb,  Education  has  not  resignedly  bowed 
down  before  it.  It  has  made  up  its  mind  that  the  weak  must 
not  be  suffered  to  succumb.  Not  only  has  it,  in  the  equal- 
itarian  spirit  of  a  democratic  age,  directed  an  unprecedented 
volume  of  effort  and  expenditure  to  the  levelling-up  of  the 
average  child  ;  it  has  not  forgotten  the  residuum  which,  if 
Nature  had  her  way,  would  receive  short  shrift  in  the  struggle 
for  existence. 

This  line  of  thought,  and  action,  must  not,  however,  be 
pressed  unduly.  It  is  a  long  stride  from  the 
thl  vaiu^of  m  belief  that  every  human  life  has  a  unique  worth 
the  individual  to  the  notion  that  all  have  equal  worth  —  a  re- 
in the  equti  mark  which  might  seem  obvious  were  it  not  for 
value  of  in-  the  fact  tnat  when  men  are  out  of  heart  at  the 

dividuals.  .  . 

inequalities  of  human  faculty  and  lot,  and  ready 
1  See  Huxley's  Evolution  and  Ethics,  esp.  p.  32. 


Natural  Inequality  if 

to  rail  at  Nature  or  Fortune  for  their  own  short-comings,  it 
has  been  customary  for  preachers  and  moralists  to  tell  them 
that,  if  they  will,  they  can  redress  the  balance,  however  un- 
favourable, by  making  themselves  second  to  none  in  moral 
character.  Has  not  the  gospel  of  independence,  from  the 
Stoics  to  Burns,  consoled  the  honest  man  with  the  assurance 
that  he  can  be  "  King  of  men  for  a'  that  "  ?  "  Brother,  thou 
has  possibility  in  them  for  much,"  cries  Carlyle,  "  the  possibility 
of  writing  on  the  eternal  skies  the  record  of  a  heroic  life1." 
Nor  need  the  profound  and  satisfying  truth  that  underlies  the 
words  be  disputed.  No  student  of  life  can  miss  the  fact  that 
the  obscurest  lot  and  the  most  insignificant  bit  of  work  can 
be  transfigured  by  the  motives  that  lie  behind  them.  This, 
indeed,  is  precisely  one  of  the  reflections  which  give  an 
enheartening  hopefulness  to  the  whole  enterprise  of  moral 
education. 

But  it  would  be  a  fatal  blunder  to  forget,  on  this  account, 
that  great  natural  inequalities  not  only  exist  but 
persist,  and  to  miss  the  fact  that  superiorities  niurafgifts8* 
of  congenital  endowment  have  claims  that  are   that  most 
second  to  none.     For  is  it  not  rather  Nature's  Attention, 
favoured    children,  the    strong   the    gifted   the 
promising  who  most  demand  attention  ?     And  this  for  more 
reasons  than  one. 

(a)  For  one  must  ever  remember  here  that  it  is  precisely 
the  most  gifted  natures  that  we  can  least  afford  to  leave  to 
themselves.  It  is  the  neglect  of  the  best  that  produces  the 
worst :  it  is  the  greatest  natural  gifts,  when  not  taken  in  hand 
by  the  maker  of  character,  that  may  work  the  greatest  mischief 
both  for  society  and  for  their  possessor.  Who  can  doubt  it 
when  he  thinks  what  the  results  may  be  when  intense  feelings 
and  fiery  passions  fasten  upon  evil  or  even  upon  second-rate 
ends,  or  when  an  imaginative  temperament  is  left  to  feed  itself 
upon  debased  ideals,  or  when  faculty  of  utterance,  by  tongue 
\Past  and  Present,  Bk  iv,  c.  viii. 


12  Natural  Inequality 

or  pen  or  brush,  is  abandoned  to  the  vagaries  of  an  energetic 
caprice  ? 

(b)  And  this  result  is  the  more  deplorable  because  it  is 
the  best  natural  gifts  that  most  repay  attention.  They  have 
most  response.  If,  in  a  sense,  they  make  their  possessor 
independent  of  the  helping  hand,  in  a  truer  sense  they 
accentuate  the  need  for  it,  because  they  have  it  in  them  to 
assimilate  influences  to  an  extent  that  may  well  be  the  envy 
of  their  less  gifted  fellows. 

Hence,  in  presence  of  inequality,  we  may  say  that  the  task 
The  two-fold  °^  education  is  two-fold.  On  the  one  hand  it 
task  of  must  level  up.  Alive  to  the  reality  of  human 

worth,  it  must  do  its  utmost  for  the  natural 
capacities  of  all  men,  even  where  promise  is  at  its  minimum. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  must  dismiss  the  illusion  that  it  can,  by 
any  levelling-up,  expect  to  diminish  the  inequalities  between 
man  and  man.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  unhesitatingly  re- 
cognise the  claims  of  the  naturally  fit,  and  give  them  of  its 
best.  The  result  will  not  be  levelling.  The 

Education  ...  . 

does  not  inequalities  after  education  are  probably  much 

wider  than  those  before  it.  Are  children  more 
on  an  equality  or  less  when  they  leave  a  school  than  when  they 
enter  ?  Are  men  more  equal  or  less  when  they  leave  the 
University  than  they  were  in  their  schooldays  ?  Few  things 
are  so  certain  as  that,  however  much  education  may  do  for  the 
naturally  weak  as  well  as  for  the  naturally  fit,  it  is  far  enough 
from  making  for  equality  either  of  mind  or  character. 

Nor  is  there  anything  in  this  that  is  really  hostile  to  the 
equalitarian  spirit  of  modern  democratic  thought. 

on^hlfac8  nOt'  ^or  tnougn  ^  *s  m  va^n  f°r  tne  equalitarian  to 
count,  hostile  deny  that  Nature  and  Education  alike  set  their 
crattc  spirit "  sea^  on  inequality,  this  need  not  discourage  the 
justifiable  and  most  human  aspiration  that  not 
only  mediocrity  but  weakness  and  defect  will  receive  even 
more  than  their  due.  For  in  no  direction  is  nurture  of  great 


Natural  Inequality  13 

powers  more  justified  of  education  than  when  it  is  made 
tributary  to  the  common  good.  And  who  can  doubt  that,-  in 
a  community  in  which,  in  proportion  as  individuals  were  richly 
endowed  by  nature,  they  were  trained  to  be  compassionate,  just 
and  public  spirited,  even  the  weakest  would  come  by  his  own  ? 

That   inequality   is   thus   a   fact   with  which   we   have   to 
reckon,  will  appear  more  evident  when  we  turn      specific 
to  the  specific  modes  in  which  it  appears  from   forms  of 

i     .      .          r    r         congenital 

the  outset.     One   of  these,  and   it   is   of  far-   endowment, 
reaching  significance,  is  Temperament. 


CHAPTER    III 

TEMPERAMENT1 

TEMPERAMENT  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  one  element  among 
other  elements  of  human  nature.      It  is  rather      TemPera- 
the  result  of  the  manner  in  which  the  elements   ments  differ 

i        r,      r  i  u     according  to 

are  mixed.     So  far  as  analysis  can  go,  it  would  the  proportions 
seem  that  these  elements  are  various.     To  say  in  wh»ch  the 

elements  of 

that  the  soul  is  alive  is  to  say  that,  at  least  in  the  soul  are 
rudimentary  fashion,  it  strives,  feels,  and  knows ;   mixed- 
and  that  it  has  already  (if  such  a  metaphor  be  applicable  to 
organic  relation)  struck  that  partnership  with  the  body  which  is 
not  dissolved  while  life  lasts.     Nor  has  the  youngest  lived  a 
day  till  each  of  these  elements  has  already  asserted  itself  in  the 
irresistible  tendency,  bound  up  with  all  life,  further  to  differen- 
tiate itself.     There  are  differences  between  man  and  man  of 
course ;  but  they  are  differences,  not  of  ultimate  elementary 
constitution,  but  of  comparative  preponderance  of  elements2. 

1  For  suggestive  treatment   of  Temperament  cf.  Lotze,  Mikrocosmus, 
bk.  vi.  c.  ii. 

2  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology  >  p.  88. 


14  Temperament 

We  say  sometimes  in  our  haste,  "The  man  has  no  feeling," 
"  no  passions, "  "  no  imagination, "  "  no  sense. "  But  we  cannot 
really  mean  it.  The  worst  that  can  happen  is  that  feeling, 
passion,  and  the  rest,  are  in  meagre  proportion.  All  the 
elements  are  there  in  subtlest  intermixture,  and  in  proportions 
so  various  that  different  persons  may  so  little  recognise  their 
common  constitution  as  to  eye  their  next-door  neighbours 
as  if  they  belonged  to  a  different  species.  Writers  used  to 
speak  of  "the  native  equality  of  man  "  :  it  is  truer  to  say  that, 
by  the  very  constitution  of  human  nature,  there  are  no  two 
men  alike. 

It  is  here  one  might  hint  that  the  man  of  the  world  has 
something  to  learn  from  the   philosopher,  at 

It  is  the  man  ., 

of  the  world,  whom  he  is  apt  to  smile  on  the  ground  that,  in 
not  the  phi-  ys  generalisations  he  is  blind  to  the  diversities 

losopher,  who 

underesti-  of  man  from  man.  De  tefabula.  It  is  the  man 

differences  of  °*  tne  wor^  wno>  in  h*8  innocence  of  analysis,  is 
man  from  ignorant  that,  by  virtue  of  the  very  plan  on  which 

it  is  built,  human  nature  is,  by  this  endlessly 
varied  mixing  of  its  elements,  predestined  to  an  endless 
diversity. 

Of  this  mixing  of  the  elements,  Temperament  is  the  re- 
flexion. Inwrought  in  the  very  texture  of  the  life,  it  modifies 
all  we  receive,  and  from  first  to  last  conditions  all  we  do. 
It  is,  so  to  say,  a  medium  that  colours,  that  suffuses  all  expe- 
rience. It  is  modifiable  enough.  For  every  influence  that 
alters  the  relative  preponderance  of  the  elements  within  us 
must  ipso  facto  alter  it.  Yet,  bound  up  with  the  proportions 
in  which  our  capacities  for  sensation  and  idea,  for  striving 
and  feeling,  in  all  their  varied  modes  have  been,  by  Nature's 
distribution,  intermixed,  it  can  rarely,  if  ever,  by  the  most 
coercive  of  educations,  be  revolutionised. 

From  this  it  follows  that  we  go  astray  if  we  seek  for  the 
seat  of  Temperament  exclusively  in  any  single  element  of  our 
constitution.  Its  secret  is  not  to  be  found  in  physiological 


Temperament  1 5 

constitution,  nor  in  those  general  or  organic  sensations  which 
so  vaguely  yet  so  deeply  colour  our  moods,  nor 
in  our  emotional  susceptibility.    These  all  work :   ment  is  there- 
of ten  they  work  upon  Temperament  with  master-   *""  ™*^* to 
ful  power.  But  Temperament  is  not  thus  simple,    element  in 
Rather  is  it  like  a  ten-stringed  instrument  that  h 
vibrates  in  all  its  chords,  now  in  this  fashion  and  now  in 
that,  as  these  have  been  variously  attuned. 

It  also  follows, that  Temperament  has  many  modes.     Few 
elements  may  be  fruitful  of  many  combinations.      It  ma 
And  when  one  begins  to  think  how  the  diverse  be  endlessly 
phases  of  our  mental  and  emotional  and  conative   var 
life  may  be  multifariously  blended  and  interfused,  there  is  room 
enough  here  for  the  warning,  always  so  needful  in  psychological 
analysis,  not  to  travesty  the  lavish,  finely-discriminated  varieties 
of  Nature  by  reducing  them  to  a  handful  of  cut  and  dried  types. 

Yet  types  of  Temperament  exist,   and  indeed  the   four 
classical  types  have,  in  literature  and  usage,  so      The  four 
long  and  persistently  survived  the  effete  physi-  classical  tem- 
ology  which  gave  them  names,  that  it  may  be   per 
assumed  that  experience  has  found  it  profitable  to  discriminate 
them.     Diagnosis  will  at  any  rate  not  be  fruitless  if  it  suggests 
ideas  as  to  the  manner  of  their  educational  treatment. 

Thus  there  is  one  type  whose  characteristic  it  is  to  be 
rapidly  and  easily  responsive  to  all  impressions     The  „  san_ 
and  interests.     It  is  caught  by  the  event  or  the  guine"tem- 
appearance  of  the  moment;  and,  when  one  has  F 
it  at  its  height,  it  is  difficult  to  know  at  which  trait  most  to 
wonder  —  at  its  responsiveness  or  at  its  fickleness,  at  its  readi- 
ness to  be  interested,  or  at  its  readiness  to  transfer  its  interest. 
This  is  the  characteristic  temperament  of  most  children,  to 
whose  unpreoccupied  outlook  the  world   is  so  interesting  a 
place  that  they  cannot  fix  their  interest  for  long  upon  anything 
in  it.     But  it  does  not  pass  with  childhood.    It  lives  on  in  the 
man  or  woman  who  is  so  excellently  fitted  to  be  a  pleasant 


1 6  Temperament 

companion  and  agreeable  member  of  society,  whose  interests 
are  many  and  quick,  who  does  not,  because  he  cannot,  agitate 
or  bore  us  by  absorbing  enthusiasms,  who,  in  a  word,  is  some- 
thing of  everything  and  everything  of  nothing.  Such  is  the 
so-called  "  sanguine  "  temperament.  Its  strength 

Its  strength,        ....  * 

lies  in  its  open  and  ready  receptiveness,  and  in 
the  promise  these  contain  of  cheerful  and  fruitful  contact  with 

experience.    Hence  we  like  to  see  it  in  children. 

But  then  it  has  the  defects  of  its  virtues.  It  is 
infirm  of  purpose,  and  it  has  a  fatal  facility  for  skating  lightly 
over  the  deeper  experiences.  Not  only  is  it  incapable  of 
heroisms  or  devotions :  it  does  not  seem  to  miss  them.  Left 
to  itself  it  would  people  the  world  with  "  ten-minuted  emotion- 
alists. "  Yet,  when  all  is  said,  such  are  hopeful  material  to  work 
upon.  They  come  half-way  to  meet  us.  They  spare  us  the 

dreary  task  of  awakening  interest  where  none  is. 
treatment.  And  ^  on^  tney  can  ^e  v°ked  to  more  strenuous 

fellow-workers,  or  enlisted  in  the  service  of  some 
great  institution,  or  deepened  by  hardship  and  struggle,  or 
convinced  (even  though  the  appeal  be  in  part  to  their  vanity  *) 
that  something  is  expected  of  them,  they  will  not  fail  of  a 
creditable  ending.  The  drawback  is  that  they  are  so  apt  to 
disappoint  the  promise  of  early  years.  In  the  University  it  is 
the  youth  whose  reputation  for  animated  conversation,  charm, 
general  ability,  is  so  brilliant  —  till  the  day  comes  when  it  is 
whispered  that  Pendennis  of  St  Boniface  is  plucked :  in  Lit- 
erature it  is  the  versatile  author  of  unwritten  books :  in  busi- 
ness, the  man  of  many  enterprises  and  few  dividends:  in 
industry,  the  "Jack  of  all  trades  "  :  in  life  in  general  the  man  of 
promise  who  could  "do  anything,"  yet  has  it  not  in  him,  when 
his  chance  comes,  to  bend  himself  to  one  resolute  effort.  Is  it 
to  their  credit  or  otherwise  that  these  sanguine  types  neverthe- 
less remain  cheerful  to  the  last,  the  one  thing  to  which  they 

1  Adam  Smith  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  the  great  secret  of  education 
is  to  direct  vanity  to  proper  objects."    Moral  Sentiments^  VI.  3. 


Temperam  ent  \j 

seem  unable  to  turn  their  minds  being  the  fact,  so  obvious  to 
the  onlooker,  that  they  have  been  tried  in  the  balance  and 
found  wanting. 

Very  different  is  the  sentimental,  or  as  it  is  usually  called 
the  "  melancholic  "  type.     Like  the  sanguine  it      The"meian 
is  sensitive  and  responsive:   unlike  it,  it  has  choiic"tem- 
neither  the  open  outward  outlook,  nor  the  ready  F 
responsiveness  to  changing  influences.  On  the  contrary,  it  dips 
deep  in  moods,  and  is  prone  to  brood  over  them  even  till  they 
touch  the  dark  fringe  of  morbidity.     In  certain      Itg  gu 
respects  this  type  is  superior  to  the  other.    It  is  ity  to  the 
not  the  shuttlecock  of   every  new  attraction. 
Whatever  it  be  it  is  not  flighty.    From  what  experience  offers, 
it  selects :  and  what  it  selects  it  cleaves  to  —  a  direct  contrast 
to  the  facile  appreciations  of  the  sanguine.     The  depth  of  its 
interests   moreover   is   some   compensation   for   its  want   of 
flexibility;  and  whatever  future  awaits  it,  it  is  likely  to  take 
life  seriously.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  just  this 

Its  dangers. 

preoccupation  with  particular  experiences  that  is 
its  snare,  so  that  many  an  aspect  of  the  great  opening  spectacle 
of  life  is  suffered  to  pass  unheeded  away  without  eliciting  a 
single  response.  This  tendency  may  have  still  more  serious 
results.  Sentimentality  may  become  the  keynote;  and  emotion 
which,  in  less  one-sided  natures,  is  the  prelude  to  active  ex- 
pression, comes  to  be  valued  so  much  for  its  own  sake  that  it 
quenches  the  practical  impulses  it  ought  to  have  vitalised. 
This  is  at  any  rate  the  result  in  many  a  case  where  tempera- 
ment has  found  food  in  literature  and  art,  in  music,  in  poetry, 
in  novel-reading  and  all  the  means  whereby,  with  little  trouble 
to  ourselves,  we  can  enjoy  the  luxury  of  emotion.  Hence  Welt- 
schmerz  in  all  its  modes.  Hence  the  make-believe  afflictions 
of  "those  good  old  days  when  we  were  so  miserable."  Hence 
those  other  afflictions,  not  make-believe,  which  catch  up  all  the 
promise  of  life  in  the  absorbing  vortex  of  one  rooted  sorrow, 
one  baffled  ambition,  one  irreparable  mistake. 


1 8  Temperament 

It  is  such  dangers  that  justify  the  wisdom  of  the  maxim,  so 

earnestly  insisted  on  by  Professor  James,  never  to  suffer  a 

single  emotion  to  evaporate  without  exacting 

of  utfiisSg"        from  it  some  practical  service.1     To  the  melan- 

emotion  for          cholic  temperament  it  will  never  come  amiss. 

action.  . 

For,  normally,  emotion  is  not  divorced  from 
action.  In  children  feeling  is  already  on  the  way  to  action. 
All  that  is  needful  is  that  these  possible  victims  of  sensibility 
should  be  thrown  betimes  into  cheerful  and  manly  companion- 
ship, there  to  be  fed  upon  healthy  outward  interests  whenever 
their  susceptibilities  offer  an  opening;  and  that  they  should  be 
reared  in  homes  where  energetic,  active  interests  get  their  due. 
Not  that  the  spirit  ought  to  be  quenched.  For  the  "  melan- 
cholic "  nature  has  a  promise  of  its  own,  and  much  may  be 
done  for  it,  if  its  emotions  find  worthy  and  not  maudlin  or 
melodramatic  objects.  So  nurtured  it  begets  the  tender  and 
sympathetic  heart.  This  however  is  no  light  task;  and  the 
melancholic  subject  will  stand  in  need  of  watchful  and  dis- 
criminative tendance,  where  its  sanguine  counterpart  may 
often  be  safely  left  to  shift  for  itself. 

In  both  these  temperaments  the  emotional  element  is  promi- 
nent, though  in  the  one  it  is  mobile  and  in  the  other  intense. 
In  the  next  two  there  is  less  of  feeling  and  more  of  practicality. 

Thus  of  the  "choleric  "  temperament  the  characteristics  are 

precipitancy  and  persistence  in  action.    There  is 

"  choleric  "          strong  reaction  within  some  more  or  less  definite 

temperament.       range  of  stjmuius<     There  is  also  a  tendency  to 

persevere  in  this  with  astonishingly  little  distraction  from 
other  interests.  It  is  the  temperament  of  the  small  boy  who, 

like  Samuel  Budgett,  becomes  "the  successful 
cauJypracti~  merchant"  from  the  day  when  he  finds  — and 

sells  —  an  old  horse-shoe :  of  the  girl  who  must 
needs  be  a  nurse,  and  begins  her  duties  in  the  wards  of  the 
nursery  amongst  her  dolls;  of  the  youth  who  will  go  to  sea 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I.  p.  125. 


Temperament  19 

from  the  hour  ne  sees  a  ship  and  has  the  honour  of  the 
acquaintance  of  a  real  sailor.  One  must  not  confuse  this  with 
the  merely  wilful  type.  For  whereas  the  wilful  boy  or  girl  may 
be  capricious  and  uncalculable,  this  is  the  reverse.  Nor  has 
it  much  kinship  with  the  sanguine,  though  the  two,  like  all 
temperaments,  may  be  mixed.  For  there  is  no  risk  here  of 
flighty  fragmentariness  of  pursuits.  The  danger  here  is  ob- 
stinate narrowness  —  the  limitation,  not  to  say  the  mutilation, 
of  character  which  in  later  years  is  apt  to  mark  the  man,  how- 
ever successful,  who  is  driven  through  life  by  coercive  practical 
proclivity. 

Proclivity  of  course  is  in  itself  no  evil.   Pronounced  instincts 
are  the  opportunity  of  the  educator  :  they  come 
half-way  to  meet  him.    If  only  they  were  always 
as  reasonable,  as  congruent  with  circumstance,   to  the  edu- 
as  good,  as  they  are  pronounced  !   Here  lies  the 
crux.     For  of  all  types  this  is  the  most  refractory.     When  the 
parent  proposes,  it  disposes.     And  where  affectionate  foresight 
has  been  at  endless  pains  to  clear  the  path  for  some  ambitious 
or  respectable  career,  this  "  choleric  "  object  of  anxiety  will  not 
walk  in  it,  but  goes  his  own  way.      Small  wonder  if  many  a 
parent  has  asked,  and  failed  to  answer  the  question,  How  is  it 
to  be  dealt  with  ? 

Not,  one  might  suggest,  by  the  strong  and  risky  policy  of 
withstanding  it  to  the  face.     When  proclivity  is      Dangers  of 
pronounced  it  may  still  be  modifiable  :  it  may  attempting  to 
even,  if  some  counter  instinct  be  available,  be  pronounced 
subjugated.      But  it  is  precisely  the   difficulty  proclivity, 
that  in  the  choleric  type  these  counter-proclivities  are  not  always 
to  be  found.     And  when  this  is  so,  the  more  hopeful  policy 
would  seem  to  be  that  of  frankly  accepting  proclivity,  and  of 
going  to  meet  it.     After  all  it  is  a  sign  of  strong  life.     When 
Nature  speaks  clearly  we  must  listen.    And  a  ruling  instinct  has 
a  way,  under  flat  contradiction,  of  becoming  a  ruling  passion. 

Naturam  expellas  furca;  tamen  usque  recurret. 


2O  Temperament 

Therefore  it  is  so  often  the  wiser  plan,  when  instincts  are  thus 
pronounced,  to  cast  about  for  the  means  of 
finding  for  them  the  healthiest  and  highest  de- 


strong  in-  velopment  of  which  they  seem  capable  :   for  the 

stincts.  ,     i      r         •  j      j  •  »i.  i 

lad  of  roving  and  adventurous  spirit,  some  manly 
and  honourable  service  :  for  the  boy  who  must  needs  drive  a 
bargain,  a  stool  in  the  best  firm,  or  apprenticeship  with  the  best 
tradesman  available  :  for  the  confirmed  meddler  with  household 
clocks,  barometers  and  water-taps,  the  workshop  bench,  and  so 
forth.  This  may  be  difficult.  It  may  be  out  of  keeping  with 
family  traditions,  circumstances,  influence,  projects.  Yet  this 
temperament  is  worth  humouring.  For  it  is  perhaps  by  these 
choleric  types,  with  their  masterful  proclivities,  that  the  hardest 
work  of  the  world  is  done. 

The   fourth   temperament,   even   though    it    be  weighted 

with  the  unpromising  label  "  phlegmatic,"  has 
matic'tem-  been  regarded  by  one  writer1  as  in  a  sense 
perament.  superior  to  all  the  others.  This  on  the  ground 

that  it  is  a  sign  of  strength  not  to  be  flightily  led  from  interest 

to  interest  like  the  sanguine,  not  to  be  at  the 
regarded  as^  mercy  of  moods  like  the  melancholic,  nor  yet, 
superior  to  all  ft^e  the  choleric,  to  be  mastered  by  any  dominant 

the  others. 

pursuit.  For  is  it  not  those  natures  that  are 
slow  to  be  moved  which  often  astonish  the  world  by  displays 
of  the  reserved  strength  that  has  been  slowly  funding  itself 
under  a  "phlegmatic"  exterior?  It  is  the  very  disposition  in 
which  Englishmen  are  so  apt  to  take  pride  when  they  flatter 
themselves  that  they  are  not  as  their  more  precipitate,  flighty, 
or  sentimental  neighbours. 

This  may  hold  of  a  certain  type  of  character  :  and  we  may 

believe,  further,  that  such  implies  a  native  inertia 
regarding8^  as  hostile  alike  to  hastiness  of  action  and  emotional 
indicative  of  a  disturbance,  and  still  more  to  quick  transfer  of 

interest.    It  may  also  be  conceded  that  that  type 
1Lotze,  Mikrocosmus,  Bk.  vi.  c.  ii. 


Temperament  2  1 

in  which  there  is  a  barrier  that  must  be  broken  through  before 
impression  stirs  emotion,  or  emotion  passes  into  action,  has  a 
strength  and  stability  that  others  lack.  It  will  at  any  rate 
remain  remote  from  the  sham  practicality,  and  the  sham 
sympathy  that  arise  from  nothing  more  than  weak  inhibition. 
Yet  it  is  too  wide  a  stretch  to  concede  all  this,  which  is  in 
most  cases  the  result  of  moral  discipline,  to  temperament. 
Phlegmatic  temperament,  whatever  its  merits,  has  the  demerit 
of  a  stolidity  that  is  the  despair  of  the  educator.  The  other 
temperaments  are  at  any  rate  not  inaccessible.  Per  contra  it 
The  phlegmatic  subject  on  the  other  hand  gives  i»  peculiarly' 
us  no  opening.  There  may  be  a  world  of  wealth  inaccessible- 
below  the  crust.  But  the  crust  is,  or  seems,  impenetrable. 
The  man  (or  boy)  neither  gives  sign  of  what  he  is  fit  for  :  nor 
does  he  respond  to  our  experiments  to  discover.  As  the 
proverb  has  it,  it  is  not  the  rearing  but  the  dead  horse  that  is 
the  hardest  to  drive.  Probably  the  best  plan  is,  placing  our 
trust  neither  in  ideas  nor  feelings,  to  weight  this  type  as 
heavily  as  we  can  with  practical  responsibilities  ;  and  to  bring 
him  face  to  face  with  issues  that  will  squeeze  out  from  him 
such  inert  strength  as  he  possesses. 

This  simple   list   might  easily  enough   be   enlarged.     We 
might  for  example  distinguish  temperaments  that 
are  buoyant  or  depressed,  self-confident  or  timid,   further  c!assi° 


explosive  or  hesitating,  headstrong  or  calculating,  ^tions  of  the 
docile  or  refractory,  and  so  on.     And  teachers, 
from  their  intimate   contact  with   masses   of  children,  might 
render  fruitful  service  by  devising  classifications  of  their  own. 
For  results  would  here  be  of  more  than  theoretical  interest, 
inasmuch  as  a  careful  diagnosis  of  types  is  the  first  step   to 
clear  ideas  of  the  treatment  they  severally  demand. 


22  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

CHAPTER   IV 

CAPACITIES,  INSTINCTS,  DESIRES 

DESPITE  the  Stoic  paradox  (by  no  means  false)  that  he  who 
has  one  virtue   has   all   the   rest,  it  would   be 
mtntfrco^di"-      absurd  to  hold  that  every  one  has  equal  aptitude 
tioned  by  for  every  virtue.    There  are  too  many  of  us  who 

Capacity.  admire  virtues  in  others  just  because  we  find  it 

so  hard  to  develope  them  ourselves.  All  actual 
moral  achievement  is,  in  short,  profoundly  conditioned  even  to 
the  end  by  specific  congenital  aptitude.  This  may  be  expressed 
by  saying  that  it  depends  on  innate  Capacity,  and  Capacity 
need  only  be  named  to  suggest  two  characteristics  that  are 
conspicuously  encouraging. 

(a)    One  is  that  it  is  capacious  :  it  means  capacities.     For, 
by  wide  consensus,  man  outstrips  the   animals 

JUSt  in  tmS>  that  he  comes  into    the  WOrld    richly 

dowered  with  capacities.  How  comparatively 
contracted  the  development  that  awaits  even  the  paragons  of 
the  animal  kingdom  :  how  comparatively  limitless  —  as  time- 
honoured  moralising  has  not  failed  to  remind  us  —  the  possi- 
bilities that  lie  hidden  in  the  humblest  of  cradles. 

(3)    The  second  characteristic  is  that  capacities  are  em- 
phatically  modifiable.     For    though    we    must 

and  modifiable. 

suppose  that  every  single  capacity  has,  so  to 
say,  an  individuality  of  its  own,  and  sends  down  specific  roots 
of  its  own  into  human  nature,  yet  our  ordinary  capacities  do 
not,  like  those  pronounced  forms  of  capacity,  the  instincts, 
obstinately  resist  the  modifying  influence  of  man  or  circum- 
stance. Thus  much  truth  at  all  events  remains  to  the  obsolete 
doctrine  that  education  can  shape  its  products  at  its  will.  For 
though  the  evolutionists  have  upset  that  doctrine  by  pointing 
out  that  each  new  life  falls  heir  to  a  rich  dower  of  capacities 
which  have  to  be  reckoned  with,  even  they  make  haste  to  add 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  23 

that  these  capacities  are  singularly  plastic  to  the  educator's 
hand1.     And  this  of  course  serves  for  encouragement. 

It  is  important  however  here  to  discriminate  between  at 
least  three  meanings  which  this  ambiguous  word  Three 
capacity  may  be  made  to  bear.  When  we  use  it 
we  may  be  thinking  mainly,  if  not  solely,  of 
capacities  for  pleasures  and  pains,  or  we  may  be  so  stretching 
the  term  as  to  include  under  it  those  pronounced  and  definite 
proclivities  which  we  commonly  call  instincts,  or  we  may  be 
thinking  also  of  a  third  class  of  propulsions  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  lack  the  definiteness  of  instincts,  while  yet,  on  the  other, 
they  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  simply  propulsions  towards 
pleasure  or  aversions  to  pain. 

Now,  if  we  take  capacities  in  the  first  of  these  senses,  it  is 
not  to  be  denied  that  they  offer  large  opportunities 
for  educational  action.  The  inherent  attractive- 
ness  of  pleasure,  the  inherent  repulsiveness  of  and  pains: 
pain  are  all  but  ineradicable.  Especially  so  with  Importance, 
pain.  Our  first  and  last  instinct  is  to  shrink 
from  pain.  We  hate  it.  If  we  could,  we  would  banish  the 
very  thought  of  it.  And  even  those,  to  whose  worn-out  bodies 
and  souls  the  pleasures  of  life  have  lost  their  charms,  usually 
have  energy  left  to  recoil  from  pain.  In  that  warfare  they  never 
flag.  It  would  seem  therefore  that,  when  other  resources  fail, 
we  can  at  least  reckon  upon  the  effectiveness  of  appeal  to  pain. 

Nor  is  it  doubtful  that  memories  of  pleasures  and  pains 
can  by  association  be  firmly  knit  to  most  things  that  have  to 
be  pursued  or  avoided  alike  in  the  domain  of  thought  and 
action.  The  association  may  be  rivetted  by  the  gradual  and 
cumulative  results  of  repetition  or,  more  rarely,  by  the  single 
memorable  experience  that  lasts  a  life-time ;  but  however 
rivetted,  it  can  certainly  become  indissoluble.  To  think  of 
this  action  is  to  shy  with  instant  aversion  from  the  pain  that 
shadows  it :  to  think  of  that  action  is  to  be  lured  by  the 
attendant  pleasure  that  beckons  us  towards  it  coercively. 
1  Cf.  Lloyd  Morgan's  Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  333. 


24  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

Even  the  ascetic,  though  he  will  have  none  of  pleasure,  knows 
well  how  to  impress  pain  into  his  service,  and  by  its  help  to 
scourge  human  nature  into  the  paths  of  virtue.  To  deny  all 
this  would  be  to  fly  in  the  face  of  facts. 

Nor  need  the  associations  thus  established  be  by  any 
means  of  express  human  contrivance.  By  grace 
of  Nature,  as  Aristotle  pointed  out  in  the  tenth 
comitant  of  Book  of  his  Ethics,  man  is  so  constituted  that 
function1  tne  normal  exercise  of  all  his  powers  brings 

pleasure  as  surely  as  health  is  accompanied  by 
the  glow  upon  the  face  of  youth,  and,  no  less  surely,  abnormal 
function  brings  its  concomitant  pain.  The  law,  it  is  true,  may 
not  be  absolute.  Even  deadly  poisons  may  produce  effects 
that  are  far  from  painful,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  high 
courage  that  lays  down  life  on  the  battle-field  can  hardly  (as 
Aristotle  himself  admits)  be  fitly  called  pleasurable1.  Yet  the 
generalisation,  taken  broadly,  holds  its  ground.  For  Nature 
helps  us  here,  and  by  annexing  to  each  line  of  action  its  own 
appropriate  pleasures  or  pains,  presents  us  with  additional 
incentives,  these  "  natural  pleasures  "  to  wit,  to  which,  as  to 
well-tried  allies,  we  can  make  our  confident  appeal.  And, 
then,  if  Nature  fails  us,  we  can,  here  as  elswhere,  improve 
upon  her.  If  the  natural  pleasures  of  telling  the  truth  and 
shaming  the  devil  be  not  enough,  we  can  possibly  tip  the 
scale  by  throwing  into  it  the  promised  pleasures  of  reward : 
if  the  natural  pains  of  lying  seem  insufficiently  deterrent,  we 
can  awaken  in  the  wavering  culprit's  mind  the  prospect  of 
what  we  shall  think  of  him,  or  do  to  him  if  he  backslides. 
Let  no  one  therefore  deny  that  appeal  to  these  capacities  for 
pleasures  and  pains  can  be  made  effective. 

It  may  be  well  to  add  that  there  are  good  reasons  for 
Effective-  thinking  that  appeal  to  fear  of  pain  is  the  more 
ness  of  appeal  effective  of  the  two. 

to  fear  of  Pain.  /    \     T-»  ^i        /?  i  ^.i 

(a)   For,  in  the  first  place,  there  seems  to 
be  a  greater  promptness  and  definiteness  in  movements  induced 
1  Aristotle's  Ethics,  Bk  m.  ix.  3. 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  2$ 

by  fear  of  pain,  even  as  there  are  in  movements  induced  by 
actual  pain.  Obedience,  for  example,  may  be  secured  either 
by  threat  or  by  proffer  of  reward.  Both  motives  move.  But 
does  the  second  move  with  equal  swiftness  or  with  equal 
definiteness?  For,  fear  of  pain  prompts  quick  reactions. 
Whence  indeed  there  is  only  too  much  temptation  to  turn 
to  it.  It  is  so  convenient,  and  not  seldom  so  deplorable, 
a  short-cut. 

(fr)  Again,  there  is  the  further  advantage,  and  it  is  not 
slight,  that  when  we  work  upon  fear  of  pain,  we 
are  less  likely  to  induce  mistaken  ideas  in  young 
minds  as  to  what  is  reasonably  to  be  expected  appeal  to 
of  them.  Two  lads,  we  shall  suppose,  have  an^pa^ns. 
been  both  disciplined  to  tell  the  truth,  the  one 
by  a  diet  of  threats,  the  other  by  a  policy  of  rewards.  Neither 
of  them  are  admirable  :  both  of  them  may  have  nothing  higher 
than  dramatic  virtue.  But  the  former  will  at  any  rate  escape 
the  illusion  that  veracity  is  more  than  is  to  be  expected  of  the 
sons  of  men.  Else  why  should  deviation  from  veracity  be 
punished?  Whereas  the  other  may  only  too  easily  slip  into 
the  flattering  unction  that  to  tell  the  truth  is  a  positive  merit. 
Else  why  should  the  telling  of  the  truth  be  rewarded  ?  It  is 
obviously  easy,  here  in  this  second  case,  to  lower  the  youthful 
standard.  To  enforce  the  plain  duties  of  life  by  threat  of 
punishment  may,  of  course,  produce  a  slave.  But  the  slave 
will  at  any  rate  escape  the  pernicious  sophistication  that  to  do 
one's  bare  duty  is  to  deserve  reward. 

(c)    It  may  be  added  that  there  seems  to  be  one  way  in 
which  pain,  and  the  fear  of  it,  can  be  made  pecu- 

,.      .         --       .  r_,  .       , .      ,  .       ir   .        j      ,.  Punishment 

liarly  effective.     T.  his  discloses  itself  in  dealing   can  reiease 

with   those   cases  where  good  proclivities  and   &°od  pro- 
clivities by 
promising   instincts   may   be    present,    present   inhibiting 

even  in  force,  but  may  be  inhibited  by  some   bad 
obstructing   weakness  or  vice  which  disastrously  blocks  their 
path.     And  the  point  is  that,  if  pain  can  only  be  applied  to 


26  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

stamp  out  the  bad,  it  may  work  wonders  by  releasing  the  good. 
We  see  this  often  in  the  larger  scene  of  life,  where,  in  natures 
sound  enough  at  the  core  and  even  rich  in  promise,  some  fatal 
infatuation,  some  unworthy  passion,  some  stain  of  vice,  some 
dash  of  worldliness,  some  yielding  to  ignoble  ease,  is  withered 
to  the  roots  by  the  wholesome  bitter  blight  of  disillusionment 
and  suffering.  The  result  is  a  changed  life.  People  sometimes 
call  it  a  moral  conversion  but  it  is  better  described  as  a  moral 
emancipation. 

The  same  thing  happens  on  a  lesser  scale  in  the  life  of 
school  or  home.  There  are  boys  enough  with  sound  instincts 
and  proclivities  for  good  who  may  nevertheless  be  careless,  or 
unpunctual,  or  truants,  or  practical  jokers,  or  mutineers,  and  so 
on.  Their  faults  may  not  go  deep,  they  may  at  any  rate  be 
only  parasitic ;  but  they  may,  to  an  extent  the  culprits  little 
dream,  inhibit  the  growth  of  character  quite  out  of  proportion 
to  their  intrinsic  heinousness.  Hence  the  possibility  of  cure 
by  punishment.  For  if  timely  punishment  can  only  be  so 
directed  as  to  kill  the  parasitic  failing  or  vice,  and  to  bring 
home  its  true  significance  to  the  culprit,  the  good  that  is  in 
him  will  have  at  the  very  least  a  better  chance  of 

It  is  not  the 

worst  cases          struggling  outwards  into  fuller  life.     For    it   is 

justify  the  not  the  thorough^   bad    cases,   not   the   cases 

ministry  where  there  is  little  good  and  much  evil,  which 

are  most  amenable  to  the  ministry  of  pain.  If 
the  discipline  of  pain  is  ever  salutary,  it  is  where  it  can  be 
made  an  ally  of  the  good  in  its  struggle  with  obstructing  evil. 

Nor  ought  it  to  be  forgotten  that  there  are  other  ways  of 

Appeal  to          impressing  pains  and  pleasures  into  the  service 

anticipated  besides  by  appeal  to  anticipated  results.     It  is 

pleasures  and  .,  _  ,  .  .          -  . 

pains  is  not  entirely  possible  to  make  the  thought  of  a  good 
the  only  way  action  pleasurable  here  and  now,  and  yet  to  say 

of  utilising 

pleasures  little  or  nothing  about  the  results  in  the  way  of 

and  pams.  pleasure  that  are  to  be  reaped  from  its  perform- 

ance.    A  man  may  live  for  posthumous  fame,  the  thought  of 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  27 

it  may  be  so  pleasing  as  to  nerve  him  to  unflagging  effort,  and 
yet  it  stands  without  saying  that  this  pleasant  thought  of  post- 
humous fame  is  not  an  anticipation  of  any  pleasure  that  he  can 
enjoy.  So  in  other  things.  A  schoolmaster  may  succeed  in 
making  it  a  pleasure  to  his  pupils  to  read  Vergil,  and  yet  do 
nothing  to  create  the  somewhat  fatal  impression  that  the  end 
of  all  study  of  the  Aeneid  is  pleasure.  The  moralist  may  make 
the  thought  of  a  duty  to  be  done  a  pleasing  thought,  and  yet 
say  never  a  word  to  foster  the  expectation  that  the  duty  done 
will  yield  a  harvest  of  pleasure.  Who  will  deny  that  the 
thought  of  some  act  of  sacrifice,  even  though  it  be  the  path 
to  certain  suffering,  may  nevertheless  fill  the  mind  with  a  lofty 
and  inspiring  joy?  So  in  lesser  things.  It  is  good  that  the 
work  of  life  should  be  made  cheerful  and  pleasant.  But  there 
are  other  ways  of  securing  this  besides  the  awakening  of  those 
anticipations  of  pleasure  to  come  which  play  so  large  a  part  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Hedonists. 

And  yet  when  all  is  said  —  and  one  does  not  forget  the 
goodly  company  of  Hedonists  from  Aristippus  to  Mill  and 
Spencer  —  it  must  be  affirmed,  and  quite  decisively,  that  the 
place  to  be  assigned  to  these  capacities  for  pleasures  and  pains 
in  the  making  of  character  is  far  from  paramount. 

For  it  is  not  the  capacities  for  pleasures  or  pains,  but  the 
instincts,  that  furnish  the  educator  with  immea- 
surably his  greatest  opportunities.     To  seek  out  cator's  best 


the  instincts  we  deem  good,  and  to  tend  them 
with  untiring  solicitude:   to  watch  for  the  in-   in  them,  but  in 
stincts  we  deem  bad,  dangerous  or  useless  ;  and 
to  use  the  good  instincts  to  oust  the  bad  —  this  is  great  part  of 
moral  education1.     For  when  life  is  young  it  struggles  ever 
forwards.     Its  heart  is  set  upon  the  things  that  interest  it  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  they  satisfy  its  instinctive  propulsions. 
And  its  powers  of  foresight  and  discrimination  being  still  all 
undeveloped,  it  never  pauses,  and  indeed  it  cannot  pause,  to 
disentangle  pleasure-giving  quality  from  the  concrete  attractive* 
1  Cf.  pp.  52  and  88. 


28  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

ness  of  the  concrete  object  that  evokes  the  ruling  passion  of  the 
hour.  Simply,  the  object  draws  the  instinct  upon  it,  and  in 
truth  it  draws  it  with  attraction  so  powerful  that  it  is  the 
commonest  of  experiences  that  a  strong  instinct  is  not  to  be 
thwarted  by  the  pains,  far  less  by  the  warnings  of  pain,  which 
it  encounters  in  its  headlong  pursuit. 

"  We  wander  there,  we  wander  here, 
We  eye  the  rose  upon  the  brier, 
Unmindful  that  the  thorn  is  near, 

Among  the  leaves ! 
And  though  the  puny  wound  appear 

Short  while  it  grieves1." 

Even  in  later  years,  long  after  the  idea  of  pleasure  or  pain 
has  disentangled  itself  from  the  context  of  life, 
sionsCofr°PUl"  *ne  instmctive  l°ve  °f  adventure,  or  of  sport,  or 
instinct  are  of  acquisition,  or  of  books,  even  of  philosophy, 
uncate uiating.  mav  obstinately  refuse  to  be  checked  in  conscious 
immoderation,  either  by  the  warnings  of  the  wise, 
or  by  the  castigations  of  experience.  What  then  are  we  to 
expect  of  the  years  when  foresight  has  still  to  be  learnt,  and 
when  young  and  eager  eyes  are  turned,  not  self-wards  to 
pleasures  or  pains,  but  healthily  outwards  upon  the  rich  store 
of  interesting  things  which  the  world  has  to  offer  to  the 
uncalculating  hungers  and  thirsts  of  instinct?  For  although, 
refusing  to  be  numbered  amongst  that  small  minority,  the 
haters  of  pleasure,  we  may  with  utmost  frankness  accept  the 
fact  that  human  nature  loves  and  longs  for  pleasure- giving 
things,  we  may  not,  without  a  fatal  lapse,  forget  that  pleasure- 
giving  quality  is  but  one  among  the  attributes  of  the  things 
we  instinctively  covet.  And  though  we  hardly  need  to  be 
reminded  that  it  may  come  to  play  a  main  part  in  the  lives 
of  some  of  us  in  later  years,  to  begin  with  it  is  not  so  much  as 
known  to  exist  until  instinctive  proclivity  has  already  driven  us 
upon  the  objects  that  yield  it.  The  utilitarians  have  long 
1  Burns,  To  James  Smith. 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  29 

striven  to  convert  the  world  to  their  dogma  that  all  desire 
is  in  its  essence  desire  for  pleasure.  Seizing  upon  the  fact 
that,  by  Nature's  law,  pleasure  is  the  usual  sequel  of  all 
healthful  function,  they  have  falsely  converted  AH  desire  is 
the  sequel  of  activity  into  activity's  initial  aim.  not  desire  for 
They  have  misread  the  truth  that  all  desire  is 
desire  for  pleasure-giving  things  into  the  falsehood  that  all 
desire  is  desire  for  the  pleasure  that  these  things  give.  This 
is  an  inversion  of  the  order  of  Nature.  We  do  not  eat,  it  is 
to  be  hoped,  for  the  pleasure  that  eating  brings ;  or  love  our 
parents  for  the  pleasure  of  so  doing ;  or  stand  by  our  friends 
for  the  pleasure  they  afford  us ;  or  pursue  the  arts  and  sciences 
for  the  pleasures  of  study.  No,  we  turn  to  these  objects  first 
of  all  by  instinct  or  by  habit,  and  then  the  pleasure  follows ; 
and,  not  seldom,  follows  all  the  more  surely  just  because  it 
was  not  our  initial  aim.  So  true  is  this,  especially  of  earlier 
years,  that  one  cannot  but  suspect  that  if  these  Hedonists  had 
turned  their  analytic  eye  upon  the  ways  of  their  own  children, 
they  might  have  convinced  themselves  that  the  manifold 
cupidities  of  young  lives  are  as  lamely  accounted  for  by  their 
attitude  to  pleasures  and  pains  as  are  the  instinctive  propulsions 
of  the  animal  world.  "  In  many  instances,"  says  Darwin,  "  it  is 
probable  that  instincts  are  persistently  followed  from  the  mere 
force  of  inheritance  without  the  stimulus  of  either  pleasure  or 
pain.  .  .  .  Hence  the  common  assumption  that  men  must  be 
impelled  to  every  action  by  experiencing  some  pleasure  or  pain 
maybe  erroneous1." 

Hence  it  follows  that  when  the  artist  in  character,  be  he 
parent,  teacher  or  moralist,  finds  himself  face  to      The  mjdn 
face  with  the  question,  "  To  what  in  the  nature   educational 
of  boy  or  girl  do  you  propose  to  make  your  *o  befinUiriy 
main  anneal  ?     Is  it  to  capacities  for  pleasures  years,  to  the 

.        .  instincts. 

and  pains,  or  is  it  to  instincts?"  the  answer 
is  that,  if  he  is  not  to  fling  away  his  opportunities,  his  vote 
1  Descent  of  Man,  p.  105  (2nd  ed.). 


3O  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

must  go  for  the  instincts.  For,  as  the  greatest  of  the  Greek 
moral  philosophers  so  clearly  saw,  never  will  a  virtue  be  so 
deeply  rooted  in  the  character,  as  when  it  has  its  beginnings 
already  implanted  by  Nature  in  those  proclivities  which  are 
ours  "  from  our  very  birth."  l 

This  may  become  clearer  when  we  see  more  precisely  what 
these  instincts  are.2 

Their  salient  characteristics  at  all  events  are  well  known. 

Instincts  are  tendencies  to  movement,  of  more 

istic*oTthe~         or   less   complexity    (involving  as  they  do  the 

instincts,  co-operation  of  the  whole  organism) .     They  are 

complexity,  .  ,          .  .  .      . 

prompt  in  response  to  stimulus  almost  with  the 
promptitude,  promptitude  of  reflex  action.  They  are  strikingly 
persistence,  persistent  in  asserting  themselves  :  and  above  all 
definiteness  tnev  are  definite.  In  the  animal  world  the  chick 
hardly  out  of  the  shell  strikes,  with  amazing 
precision,  at  the  particle  of  grain,  the  bee  makes  for  the  flower, 
the  kitten,  carnivorous  from  infancy,  pursues  its  predestined 
mouse.  And  so  in  the  human  world  ;  the  child  unhesitatingly 
satisfies  its  hunger  and  thirst,  or  closes  tiny  hands  decisively 
on  its  first  toy,  or  begins  its  prolonged  tyranny  over  the 
domestic  animals,  or  imitates  the  whole  small  circle  of  its 
acquaintance.  Nothing  is  more  surprising  than  the  organised 
complexity  of  the  reaction  in  proportion  to  the  slightness  of 
stimulus.  For  stimulus  here  is  like  a  trigger; 
it  liberates  forthwith  a  discharge  in  the  way 
of  movement  of  an  amazingly  definite  and  well- 
concerted  character.  The  proclivity  is  as  explosive  as  it  is  deter- 
minate. And  yet  there  has  been  no  previous  education  in  this 
astonishing  performance.  This  is  the  old  trite 
marvel.  Without  schools  or  masters,  in  a  scene 
all  new  to  them,  these  untaught  experts  of  nature 

1  Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  vi.  c.  xiii. 

2  Cf.  Lloyd  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct,  pp.  4  et  seq.  and  327  et  seq.; 
and  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  c.  xxiv. 


Capacities,  Instincts  y  Desires  31 

pick  and  choose  with  more  than  the  promptitude  and  infalli- 
bility of  old  experience.  No  wonder  that  biologists  have 
sometimes  tried  to  see  in  these  performances  the  work  of 
"  lapsed  intelligence."  For  had  intelligence  expressly  designed 
and  presided  over  this  mechanism  that  is  more  than  mechan- 
ism, it  could  not  more  happily  have  compassed  its  ends. 

This  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  these  ends  are  not 
foreseen.    Instinct  inverts  the  proverbial  phrase  ;      In  what  sense 
instead  of  seeing  roads  before  they  are  made,  it  the  instincts 
makes  roads  before  they  are  seen.     For  all  that 
is   needful  is  that  the  immediate  object  be  presented,  be  it 
food,  warmth,  shelter,  object  of  possession,  attractive  example, 
or  what  not:    forthwith  it  is  pursued.      Blindly  pursued,  we 
say ;  meaning,  not  of  course  that  the  creature  does  not  see  the 
immediate  object.     It  sees  it,  usually  with  miraculous  sharp- 
sightedness.     But  it  does  not  see  it  in  the  light  of  what  is  going 
to  ensue  upon  its  appropriation  —  a  fact,  we  may  remark  in 
passing,  of  which  the  human  race  has  not  been  slow  to  avail 
itself  when  it  baits  traps  and   devises   decoys  for   even   the 
intelligent  aristocracy  of  its  "  poor  earth-born  companions  and 
fellow- mortals."     At  first,  man's  instincts  are  hardly  more  than 
this.     With  no  foresight,  still  less  with  calculation  of  results, 
and  less  still  of  hedonistic  results,  children   eat,  drink,  play, 
imitate,  trustfully  seek  the  face  of  man,  or  timidly  shun  it, 
"  For  'tis  their  nature  too."  x 

Hence  that  excellent  definition  of  Instinct :  —  "  the  faculty  of 
acting  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  certain  ends 
without  foresight  of  the  ends,  and  without  pre-   finIends.tinct  de~ 
vious  education  in  the  performance." >A 

1  A  little  Highland  boy,  caught  flagrante  delicti,  was  once  rebuked  by 
a  Church  elder  for  furiously  riding  a  stolen  pony  on  Sunday.     "  Do  you 
know  that  it  is  very  wrong,  my  little  man?"     "Oh,"  was  the  impenitent 
reply,  "  I   must   do  this  whateffer."     There  spoke  the  genuine  voice  of 
instinct. 

2  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  n.  p.  383. 


32  Capacities  y  Instincts,  Desires 

To   this   general   account  of  Instinct  it  remains   to   add 
certain   characteristics  of  especial   educational 

Characteris- 
tics of  especial      importance, 
educational  I$   Tne  first  of  these  is  that  the  instincts  are 

importance. 

many. 
This  statement  however  is  no  sooner  made  than  it  needs 

qualification,  and  indeed  some  may  think  that  it 
instinctsmay  needs  contradiction.  For  has  it  not  been  said 
be  regarded  ag  upon  high  authority,  and  is  it  not  widely  accepted, 

that  man  stands  apart  from  the  animals  precisely 
because  his  instincts  are  few  ?  Much  capacity  and  few  instincts 
—  so  runs  the  accepted  analysis. 

It  may  be  granted  at  once  that,  if  "  instinct "  be  pressed  to 

its  more  rigorous  and  more  strictly  biological 
what  stretch  meaning,  this  last  statement  is  the  true  one. 
the  meaning  of  Certainly  man  has  not  many  instincts  that 

the  word.  * 

exhibit  in  full  measure  the  promptitude  or  the 
definiteness  of  animal  endowment.  In  admitting  this,  it  is 
however  of  importance  to  reaffirm,  in  harmony  with  the  dis- 
tinctions drawn  above,  that  there  are  in  man  many  proclivities 
which  cannot  be  rightly  regarded  as  capacities  for  pleasures  or 
pains  (however  true  it  be  that  pleasures  and  pains  are  insepar- 
able retainers  upon  them).  Like  the  instincts  these  proclivi- 
ties are  innate  and  untaught.  Like  the  instincts  their  look 
is  outwards  upon  their  objects  not  inwards  upon  anticipated 
pleasures  or  pains.  Like  the  instincts,  they  imply  no  foresight 
of  the  ends.  And  like  the  instincts,  though  in  feebler  and 
more  wavering  fashion,  they  come  out  to  meet  our  efforts 
when  we  hit  upon  the  objects  which,  by  Nature's  adaptation, 
are  fitted  to  evoke  them.  Now,  of  course,  if  we  prefer  it,  we 
may  refuse  to  call  these  proclivities  "  instincts."  It  does  not 
much  matter  what  we  call  them,  if  we  recognise  that  they  exist, 
and  that  they  are  of  the  utmost  practical  importance.  But  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  they  have  so  much  in  common  with 
instinct,  and  are  therefore  to  be  sharply  distinguished  from 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  33 

capacities  for  pleasures  and  pains,  it  will  be  practically  con- 
venient to  class  them  along  with  the  instincts  strictly  so  called 
And  we  shall  then  be  able  to  follow  Professor  James  in  saying, 
as  against  the  commonly  accepted  view,  that  the  instincts  of 
man  are  many.1 

2.     A  second  point  is  that  human  instincts,  thus  under- 
stood,  lend  themselves  to  education,   for  the      2    Instinctt 
simple  reason  that,  because  of  certain  features,   invite  inter- 
they  cannot  be  safely  left  to  themselves. 

(a)  One  such  feature  is  that  they  are  transitory.  They 
ripen  at  a  certain  time  of  life,  and  thereafter,  if  because 
they  be  not  taken  up  and  transmuted  into  habits,  they  are 
they  decay  and  dwindle.  Hence  if  they  be  good  * 
and  promising,  the  importance  of  taking  them  in  hand,  and 
hence  the  penalties  of  neglecting  to  take  them  in  hand,  at  the 
right  time.  Professor  James  has  put  the  point  so  convincingly 
as  to  make  any  other  statement  of  it  presumptuous.2  "If  a 
boy  grows  up  alone  at  the  age  of  games  and  sports,  and  learns 
neither  to  play  ball,  nor  row,  nor  sail,  nor  ride,  nor  skate,  nor 
fish,  nor  shoot,  probably  he  will  be  sedentary  to  the  end  of  his 
days;  and  though  the  best  of  opportunities  be  afforded  him  for 
learning  these  things  later,  it  is  a  hundred  to  one  but  he  will 
pass  them  by  and  shrink  back  from  the  effort  of  taking  those 
necessary  first  steps  the  prospect  of  which,  at  an  earlier  age, 
would  have  filled  him  with  eager  delight.... In  all  pedagogy  the 
great  thing  is  to  strike  the  iron  while  hot,  and  to  seize  the  wave 
of  the  pupils'  interest  in  each  successive  subject  before  its  ebb 
has  come,  so  that  knowledge  may  be  got  and  a  habit  of  skill 
acquired  —  a  headway  of  interest,  in  short,  secured,  on  which 
afterward  the  individual  may  float.  There  is  a  happy  moment 
for  fixing  skill  in  drawing,  for  making  boys  collectors  in  natural 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  n.  p.  393;  and  Lloyd  Morgan, 
Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  327,  "  The  first  fact  that  strikes  us  is  how  far  what  is 
innate  is,  in  the  hereditary  endowment  of  man,  in  excess  of  what  is  instinc- 
tive," et  seq. 

2  James,  ibid.,  vol.  n.  p.  401. 


34  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

history,  &c....To  detect  the  moment  of  the  instinctive  readi- 
ness for  the  subject  is,  then,  the  first  duty  of  every  educator." 
The  wisdom  of  this  is  incontrovertible.  It  finds  confir- 
mation alike  in  the  fulness  of  the  life  in  which  no  strong  and 
healthy  instinct  has  looked  in  vain  for  timely  nurture,  and  in 
the  forlorn  spectacle  of  those  whom  we  sometimes  see  struggling 
belatedly  in  later  years  to  cultivate  pursuits  or  pastimes  for 
which  the  auspicious  educational  hour  has  long  passed.  It 
was  well  said  by  Froebel  that  every  period  of  life  has  claims 
of  its  own  upon  us,  and  is  not  to  be  abridged  unduly  by  the 
raw  haste  that  hurries  after  the  next  step  in  development.  For 
if  we  starve  instincts  when  they  ought  to  be  fed,  the  result  is 
more  than  a  thwarted  and  unhappy  youth.  It  is  an  im- 
poverished manhood. 

(b)  Add  to  this  that,  even  whilst  they  have  their  day,  these 

instincts  are  intermittent  in  their  promptings. 
For  tne^r  alliance  with  the  feelings  is  i ntimate  — 
mittent  in  their     so  intimate  that  it  is  far  from  easy  to  discrimi- 

promptings. 

nate  them  from  the  expressions  of  the  emotions. 
Hence  they  are  only  too  prone  to  lie  at  the  mercy  of  our  moods. 

"  I  feel  the  weight  of  chance  desires," 

says  Wordsworth, 1  confessing  the  weakness  of  a  being,  however 
favoured,  who  still  lives  upon  the  bounty  of  Nature.  For  life 
does  not  adjust  its  demands  upon  us  to  humour  our  moods. 
He  would  be  a  sorry  citizen  who  acted  only  when  he  felt  the 
strong  glow  of  patriotism  or  benevolence;  a  poor  student  who 
never  turned  to  his  books  save  when  the  spirit  moved  him. 
If  the  work  of  life  is  to  be  done  we  must  have  something 
steadier  and  more  calculable  than  instinct  to  go  upon. 

(c)  A   further   shortcoming   of   instinct   remains.     Even 

the  most  definite,  in  other  words  even  the  most 
they  areeCaU  instinctive  of  our  instincts,  may  still,  so  far  as 

morally  in-  jts  morai direction  goes,  be  indeterminate.    Man 

determinate, 

is  not  born  to  virtue  as  the  sparks  fly  upward, 
1  Ode  to  Duty.     "  Me  this  unchartered  freedom  tires, 
I  feel  the  weight  of  chance  desires." 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  35 

nor  does  he  unfold  the  qualities  of  a  character  by  the  same 
predestinate  necessity  wherewith  the  plant  expands  in  the 
sunshine.1  In  man,  even  within  the  domain  of  one  and  the 
same  instinct,  there  is  a  possibility  of  widely  different  de- 
velopments. When  a  child,  for  example,  has  an  overmastering 
instinct  of  acquisitiveness,  who  will  prophesy  the  sequel  — 
thrift  or  avarice?  When  he  has  an  unmistakable  hunger  for 
praise,  is  it  to  end  in  vanity,  or  in  a  just  "love  of  the  love 
of  other  people,"  of  which  vanity  is  the  counterfeit?  When  all 
his  instincts  are  to  give,  is  his  to  be  the  future  of  the  good- 
natured  prodigal,  or  of  the  generous  friend  of  charities,  who 
holds  his  fortune  as  a  trust?  And  is  there  not  for  every 
instinct  a  like  parting  of  the  ways? 

Hence  the  transparent  infatuation  of  the  cheap  advice, 
"Trust  to  your  children's  instincts."     By  all   andtherefore 
means  let  us  study  their  instincts,  and  watch  not  to  be 
them,  and  tend  them.     In  them,  as  we  have   * 
asserted,  lie  our  opportunities.     Let  us  not  trust  them.     For 
this  is.  to  forget  that  the  only  kind  of  instinct  that  is  really  to 
be  trusted  is  that  educated  instinct  we  call  a  virtue. 

(d)   All  this  is  further  confirmed  by  the  fact  that,  as  years 
pass  and  development  proceeds   instincts  as- 
sume higher  forms  that  still  more  manifestly 
invite  the  educator's  hand. 

It  has  been  already  suggested  that  human  instincts  are  by 
no  means  so  certain  and  unhesitating  as  those  of 
the  animals.  The  truth  is  that,  as  one  genera- 
tion  succeeds  another,  there  is  so  much  vari- 
ation in  human  circumstance,  and  by  consequence  adaptation 
becomes  so  progressive,  that  the  tendencies  which  the  progeny 
inherit  and  pass  on  have  something  less  than  the  confidence 
of  those  of  creatures  who  have,  since  .ong  before  Adam  delved, 
been  faithfully  repeating  the  actions  of  their  progenitors.  It 
is  a  precious  fact  for  their  development.  If  our  children  moved 

1  Cf.  Aristotle,  Ethics,  Bk.  II.  c.  i. 


36  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

upon  the  objects  of  their  desires  with  all  the  certainty  ot 
clockwork  (or  chickwork)  they  would  not  give  us  openings. 
Fortunately  they  do  not,  and,  as  result,  their  hesitancy  carries 
at  once  appeal  and  opportunity  for  intervention. 

This  invaluable  hesitancy  is  moreover  all  the  greater  be- 
cause the  instincts,  being  many,  often  conflict 

and  conflict,  .,,  ,  m,  ., 

unknown  to  wlth  one  another.  Thus  the  greganousness 
the  animal  which  draws  man  to  his  fellows  may  conflict 

world. 

with  that  instinct  of  fear  that  eyes  a  strange  face 
with  uneasiness,  if  not  with  aversion :  or  the  greed  that  grasps 
at  every  new  object  may  conflict  with  the  distrust  that  looks 
fearfully  round  in  novel  surroundings :  or  the  vanity  that  courts 
the  gaze  of  all  eyes,  with  the  bashfulness  that  would  sink 
into  the  earth;  or  the  friendliness  that  prompts  little  boys  to 
exchange  gifts,  with  the  jealousy  or  the  combativeness  that 
impels  them,  five  minutes  later,  to  fight  their  first  battle.  The 
fact  is  so  familiar  that  it  has  been  used  to  point  to  a  well- 
known  contrast :  — 

"  The  blackbird  amid  leafy  trees, 
The  lark  upon  the  hill, 
Let  loose  their  carols  when  they  please, 
Are  quiet  when  they  will. 
With  Nature  never  do  they  wage 
A  foolish  strife;  they  see 
A  happy  youth,  and  their  old  age 
Is  beautiful  and  free." l 

And  the  moral  implied  is,  of  course,  that  we  hapless  human 
beings,  clouding  our  present  good  by  the  uneasy 

Man  cannot          ,  .    ,  A,  .  ,  •!_,.« 

really  envy  the  hope  or  regret  for  something  else,  might  well 
happiness  of  envy  this  calm  undistracted  life  of  the  brutes. 

the  animals. 

Is  it  too  prosaic  a  comment  to  suggest  that  if 
the  brutes  be  enviable  upon  this  score,  it  is  because  of  their 
poverty?  If  their  lives  are  a  harmony  it  is  because  their  native 
endowment  carries  in  it  so  few  possibilities  of  dissonance. 

1  Wordsworth,  The  Fountain. 


Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires  37 

They  have  comparatively  few  conflicts  with  themselves  because 
they  have  comparatively  few  instincts.  In  man  it  is  otherwise. 
The  distractions,  the  unrest  of  his  life,  is  proof  of  the  fulness 
of  his  endowment.  As  Professor  James  puts  it,1  he  has  so 
many  instincts  that  these  block  each  other's  path,  thereby 
creating  bewilderment  and  distraction.  Better 
that  it  should  be  so.  For  these  warring  pro- 
clivities  suspend  action.  They  create  an  inter-  between 
val,  unknown  to  the  creature  of  swiftly  satisfied 
unerring  instinct,  between  the  excitement  of 
stimulus  and  the  reaction  upon  it.  It  is  a  pregnant  interval. 
For  with  it  comes  the  possibility  that  the  impetuousness  of 
youth,  else  headlong  and  heedless,  can  be  disciplined  to  look 
before  and  after,  and  to  make  its  first  tentative  essays  in 
Deliberation  and  Choice.2 

Hence  it  comes  that  as  development  proceeds,   human 
instincts  disclose  features  which  make  it  diffi- 
cult to  speak  of  human  instincts  at  all.    Instinct  celling  t^be 

passes  up  into  higher  forms.    For  as  man  begins   'blind,' be- 
come desires, 
to  learn  from  his  experience,  and  not  least  from 

his  blunders,  his  propulsions  cease  to  be  "blind."  Possibly 
this  holds  even  of  some  of  the  animals.  When  a  trap  closes 
upon  some  wild  creature  it  probably  realises,  at  least  for  some 
little  time  to  come,  that  it  has  made  a  mistake :  and  anglers 
at  least  may  indulge  the  supposition  that  an  experienced  trout 
which  has  suffered  much  at  their  hands,  has  visions  of  ulterior 
discomfort  if  it  yields  to  rise  at  a  fly.  But  whereas  trout  or 
rabbit  or  other  victim  may  be  again  befooled  in  a  day,  the 
man  learns  from  his  experience.  It  would  be  flattery  to  say 
he  cannot  forget.  But  he  does  not  forget  so  easily,  and  some 
experiences  even  once  brought  home,  he  never  can  forget. 
The  result  is  momentous.  The  early,  sanguine,  instinct- 
prompted  attack  upon  reality 8  suffers  a  check  from  which  it 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.  393. 

2  Cf.  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  326. 
»Cf.  ibid.  p.  132. 


38  Capacities,  Instincts,  Desires 

never  recovers;  and  the  unsuspecting  confidence  of  the  mere 
life  of  instinct  passes,  not  to  return.  It  is  thus  that  man 
profits  by  even  very  youthful  experiments  in  living;  thus  that 
he  is  educated  to  look  beyond  the  immediate  object  upon 
which  "blind"  instinct  terminates;  thus  that  he  begins  to 
acquire  that  faculty  of  foreseeing  ends  which  is  the  sign  that 
Instinct  has  become  Desire.1 

This  opens  up  possibilities.    For  this  consciousness  of  ends 
.  has  not  hard  and  fast  limits  to  its  development, 

of  human  Well  was    Desire    called   by   the   Greeks   in- 

satiable (a7rX>;o-Tos) .  For  as  reason  gains  in 
grasp,  and  as  the  horizon  which  it  sweeps  is  for  ever  enlarging, 
the  soul  voyages  on  to  unpathed  waters  and  to  undreamed 
shores.  New  ends  rise  before  it,  and  of  none  can  it  be  said, 
"This  is  the  last:"  and  as  each  takes  shape  under  the 
moulding  influences  of  man's  device,  desire  and  aspiration 
reach  out  after  it  with  a  seemingly  exhaustless  vitality,  prac- 
tically exhaustless  in  the  race,  and  for  the  individual  only 
exhausted  by  the  hungry  span  he  calls  his  life.  In  nothing 
does  man  more  conspicuously  part  company  with  the  animal 
kingdom  from  which  he  has  emerged.  When  instincts  arise 
in  animals,  they  satisfy  them.  The  instincts 

Desire,  un-  ,,  , .    .       ,,  .  A      j  t 

like  animal  recur :  they  satisfy  them  again.     And  so  from 

appetite,  is  generation  to  generation  they  round  the  same 

progressive. 

small  monotonous  circle  of  their  lives.  Not  so 
with  Desire.  Not  all  the  treasury  of  Nature,  nor  all  the 
ingenuity  of  human  resource,  can  suffice  permanently  to  still 
its  cravings.  Hence  that  consciousness  of  unrest  that  dis- 
quiets and  often  torments  even  those  who  lead  full  lives, 
from  Carlyle's  "  infinite  shoeblack  "  upwards.2  Hence  too  the 
tragedy  that  sometimes  ensues  when  the  resources,  be  it  of 
a  rich  stupid  household,  of  a  luxurious,  ill-educated  city,  of 

1  Cf.  Spinoza's  definition  of  Desire.  "  Desire  is  Appetite  with  conscious- 
ness thereof,"  Ethics,  Part  ill.  Prop.  ix.  Scholium. 

2Cf.  Sartor  Resartus,  Bk.  n.  c.  ix.  Cf.  the  lines  on  the  unrest  of 
human  life  which  George  Herbert  quaintly  calls  "  The  Pulley." 


Capacities,  Instincts,    Desires  39 

a  materialistic  civilisation,  are  not  qualitatively  adequate  to 
the  cravings  of  a  progressive  nature,  and  set  themselves  to 
appease  desires  that  are  capable  of  higher  things  by  mul- 
tiplying lower  satisfactions. 

"  In  his  cool  hall,  with  haggard  eyes 

The  Roman  noble  lay  ; 
He  drove  abroad  in  furious  guise 

Along  the  Appian  way. 
He  made  a  feast,  drank  fierce  and  fast, 
And  crowned  his  brow  with  flowers, 
No  easier  nor  no  quicker  passed 
The  impracticable  hours1. " 

Hence  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  man's  unhappiness 
comes  of  his  greatness.  Some  of  it  at  any  rate  unquestionably 
does.  For  we  must  never  think  of  the  desires  as  if  they  and 
their  objects  were  simply  given  by  grace  of  Nature,  and  as  if 
nothing  were  left  for  Reason  to  do  but  to  find  the  means  for 
their  satisfaction.  On  the  contrary,  desires  emerge,  from  their 
earliest  beginnings,  in  so  intimate  a  fusion  with  imagination 
that  they  would  not  be  what  they  are,  nor  would  their  objects 
so  much  as  exist,  if  intelligence  were  not  already  inwoven  in 
their  essence.  In  this  lies  the  secret  of  their  progressiveness. 
For  it  is  the  distinction  of  the  human  soul  that  it  can  not  only 
discover  new  and  ever  new  objects  to  satisfy  its  cravings ;  if 
discovery  fails,  it  is  not  daunted.  With  a  resourcefulness  of 
which  the  history  of  civilisation  is  witness,  it  calls  the  construc- 
tive imagination  to  its  aid  and  invests  an  endless  wealth  of 
ideal  ends  which  become  the  objects  of  its  passionate  pursuit. 
Nor  has  it  hesitated,  from  the  days  of  the  old  mythologies  to 
those  of  latter-day  creeds,  to  project  these  visions  of  unfulfilled 
desire  into  a  future  life  in  which  it  might  find  the  fruition  that 
is  denied  to  it  on  earth. 

Cynics  sometimes  declare  that  the  brutes  are  temperate, 
sober  and  happy  as  compared  with  man.  So  they  are.  And 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  Obermann. 


4O  The  Economy  of  Human  Powers 

indubitably  had  man  remained  a  brute,  he  would  have  escaped 

many  a  vice  and  much  suffering.     But  it  would  have  been  at 

And  this  fur-     tne  cost  °^  surrendering  those  progressive  desires, 

nishes  grounds     of  which  his  excesses  are  the  dark  shadow.    -  And 

it  is  just  this  progressiveness  of  Desire  that  is 

the  opportunity,  the  hope,  and,  if  he  fail  to  find  it  adequate 

nurture,  the  judgment  of  the  maker  of  character. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ECONOMY   OF   HUMAN   POWERS 

WITH  given    congenital    endowment    as   material  to  work 

upon,  the  task  of  the  educator  is  manifestly  two- 

tatktW°  f°ld        fold-     He  must  so  nurture  the  capacities  and 

desires  as  to  increase  to  the  utmost  the  quantum 

of  psycho-physical  energy,  and  he  must  so  direct  and  distribute 

this  energy  as  to  secure  the  best  economy  of  life's  resources. 

To  the  first  of  these  enterprises  there  is,  doubtless,  a  limit. 

Even  some  of  the  most  strenuous  and  aspiring 

.    SPiritS  that  the   WOrld    haS     CVer    SCen    have    been 

forced  to  recognise  that  there  are  tasks  beyond 
their  strength.  It  may  be  when  they  have  had  to  learn  that 
their  "  brother  ass,"  the  body — as  St.  Francis  called  it — is  an 
inadequate  instrument  for  executing  their  plans  and  projects ; 
or  it  may  be  when  a  just  estimate  of  their  powers  has  compelled 
them  to  narrow  their  range  of  thought  and  action  far  within 
their  wishes ;  or  it  may  be  when  they  are  constrained  to  see, 
with  a  half-envious  admiration,  in  men  of  greater  force  of 
character,  realities  of  moral  achievement  which  they  cannot 
hope  to  rival.  And  the  same  lesson — is  it  needful  to  say  it? — 
may  be  much  more  easily  learnt  in  the  school  of  experience  by 
the  multitude  of  lesser  men  who  swell  the  rank  and  file  of  the 


The  Economy  of  Human  Powers  41 

moral  world.  There  are,  in  short,  —  for  we  need  not  labour  a 
point  that  so  closely  borders  on  a  platitude  —  many  degrees  of 
possible  force  of  character,  even  as  there  are  manifestly  many 
degrees  of  possible  bodily  vigour. 

Not  that  it  is  so  easy  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  to 
accept  the  limits.     For  when  we  pass  from  body 
to  soul,  and  especially  to  the  moral  and  religious  limirtes 


life,  we  are  often  surprised,  and  even  startled  by  crease  of  moral 

J     energy  ? 

an  unexpected  rise  in  the  currents  of  the  spirit. 
It  is  always  difficult,  and  perhaps  rash,  to  say  of  any  man,  even 
though  he  may  seem  a  feeble  specimen  of  humanity,  that  he 
cannot  do  this  or  that,  when  the  "  cannot  "  refers  to  moral  and 
religious  possibilities.  What  a  man  has  it  in  him  to  do  and  to 
be  is  a  thing  not  known  to  any  mortal,  not  even  to  himself. 
For,  as  Aristotle  long  ago  pointed  out,  there  is  no  way  of 
judging  what  are  the  potentialities  of  the  soul  except  from 
their  actual  manifestations.  And  if  it  be  matter  of  experience 
that*  energies  of  unsuspected  force  —  some  sudden  awakening  of 
instinct,  some  sudden  flooding  of  the  tides  of  desire,  some 
sudden  intensification  of  effort  and  resolve  —  do  really  emerge 
in  many  lives,  it  is  nothing  but  reasonable  to  read  such  things 
as  so  many  warnings  against  the  rash  supposition  that  we  can 
discover  final  limits  to  the  development  of  moral  or  religious 
energy  in  any  given  case.  Even  Spinoza,  that  foe  of  the 
popular  belief  that  the  Will  is  free,  has  declared  that  we  do  not 
know  what  the  body  can  do  *.  Still  less,  we  may  add,  would  it 
become  us  to  dogmatise  as  to  what  the  soul  can,  or  cannot,  do. 
For,  whatever  be  the  ultimate  truth  as  regards  the  limits  of 
moral  energy  which  must  needs  encompass  human  nature,  if 
only  by  reason  of  its  finitude,  —  a  large  and  obscure  question  on 
which  we  cannot  enter  here  —  we  must  certainly  not  fall  into 
the  fallacy  of  regarding  force  of  character  as  if  it  were  as 
definitely  limited  as  the  horse-power  of  an  engine.  Who  is 

1  Ethics,   Part   in.   Prop.  ii.  Scholium,  "  For  what  the  Body  can  do 
no  one  has  hitherto  determined." 


42  The  Economy  of  Human  Powers 

there  who  will  be  bold  enough  to  say,  when  he  sits  down  in  a 
quiet  hour  to  review  his  life,  that  he  has  put  forth  all  the 
spiritual  energies  of  which  he  was  capable?  Who  will  venture 
to  deny  that  millions  of  our  race  have  come  and  gone, 
The  oten  possessed  of  faculty  which  they  have  never  used, 
tiaiities  that  and  of  potentialities  which  have  been  smothered 
are  never  used.  by  ^  apathetic  or  cowardly  inertia?  Nor  are 

our  moral  prophets  to  be  dismissed  as  vain  dreamers  who 
would  beguile  the  world  by  illusory  appeals  and  barren  exhor- 
tations. They  are  within  their  right,  because  they  are  in  touch 
with  experience,  when  they  tell  their  fellow-men,  be  they 
laggards  or  leaders,  that  they  have  in  them  "  possibilities 
for  much."  It  would  be  the  hardest  of  tasks  for  any  theory, 
even  for  a  theory  that  would  reduce  human  nature  to  a 
higher  kind  of  mechanism  (as  some  theories  do),  to  rule  out 
as  a  futile  figment  the  unexhausted  potentialities  of  the 
human  spirit. 

This  question  however — the  abstract  question  of  the  limits 
to  increase  of  psycho-physical  energy — is  not  one  that  can 
longer  detain  us  here.  It  is  beyond  our  scope.  Nor  indeed 
is  it  necessary  to  pursue  it  further  in  order  to  justify  educa- 
tional effort  in  working,  by  every  resource  at  its  disposal,  for 
the  increase  of  mental  and  moral  force.  For  two  reasons. 
Firstly,  because  it  is  not  likely  to  be  denied 

In  practice  .  . 

there  is  wide  by  anyone  that,  in  all  normal  cases,  the  vital 
creaSn^the  energies  can  indubitably  be  nurtured  into  a 
energies  of  the  stronger  and  fuller  life.  As  our  thoughts  pass 
from  the  infant  in  the  cradle  to  the  man,  even 
the  most  ordinary  man,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  strength,  we 
might  well  marvel,  were  it  not  that  the  facts  are  so  familiar,  at 
the  continual  miracle  of  ordinary  development.  And,  secondly, 
because,  be  the  limits  to  this  development  what  they  may,  it 
remains  beyond  dispute  that  in  the  actual  children  with  whom 
we  have  to  deal  in  educational  work  (unless  they  be  con- 
spicuously abnormal),  the  actual  lags  so  far  behind  the  possible 


The  Economy  of  Human  Powers  43 

that  neither  parent  nor  teacher,  neither  voluntary  effort  nor 
public  authority,  need  disturb  themselves  by  the  fear  that  their 
occupation  will  be  gone  in  making  the  weak  strong  and  the 
strong  stronger.  That  limits  might  be  reached  if  we  went  far 
enough,  need  not  be  denied  :  that  we  have  ever  gone  far  enough 
to  reach  them  would  be  the  most  gratuitous  of  illusions. 

Increase  of  energy  is,  however,  but  one  aspect  of  moral 
education.     For  it  is  not  lack  of  force,  of  one 
kind  or  another,  that  is  perhaps  the  main  cause  ti(^  of 
of  moral  shortcoming  :  it  is  rather  waste,  through 
wasteful  economy  of  available  forces.      Even  on  the  higher 
levels  of  character  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  man  is  so  perfect 
that   his   actual   powers  could  not  be,  by  better  distribution, 
turned  to  better  account.     And  if  this  be  true  of  the  best,  what 
are  we  to  say  of  the  mediocre  and  the  worst  ?     What  are  we  to 
say  of  the  vices,  that  prodigal  "  expense  of  spirit      The 
in  a  waste  of  shame"?     And,  far  short  of  the   of  human 
vices,  how  vast  is  the  sum  of  human  faculty  that  F 
is  lavishly  squandered  upon  nothing  worse  than  a  mistaken 
plan  of  life,  a  flighty  and  fickle  choice  of  interests,  a  drifting 
acquiescence  in  conventional  ways,  even  a  desultory  pursuit  of 
pleasures.      It  is  facts  like  these  that  help  us  to  understand  the 
ethical   thinkers  who  were  also  the  educational   teachers   of 
Greece.     For  it  is  not  the  moral  dangers  due  to  torpor  or 
inertia  that  meet  us  most  in  the  pages  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
For  these  thinkers  are  agreed  that  the  ruin  of  the  soul  of  man 
comes  of  the  very  strength  and  vitality  of  its  powers,  and  above 
all  of  those   many   and   masterful   appetites  which   for   ever 
threaten  to  burst  the  bonds  of  restraint,  and  which,  if  left 
without  the   guiding  and  controlling  hand,  will  surely  disin- 
tegrate the  character  and  precipitate  that  anarchy 
of  the  city  of  Mansoul  which  is  Plato's  synonym    cone*  ptiSon 


for  the  depths  of  vice  and  misery.  Small  wonder 
therefore  that  The  Republic  is  a  passionate  plea 
for  "Justice."  For  "Justice,"  in  the  large  Platonic  sense,  is 


44  -The  Economy  of  Human  Powers 

nothing  but  that  right  and  harmonious  and  rational  distribution 
of  human  powers  in  which  —  if  this  great  thinker  is  to  be 
believed  —  lies  the  whole  secret  of  man's  salvation.  Nor  when 
the  mood  of  pessimism  is  upon  him,  is  it  the  lack  of  forceful- 
ness  he  dreads  ;  it  is  the  failure  of  direction  or  the  misdirection 
of  perverted  forces. 

And  yet   these  wasteful  violations  of  a  right  economy  of 

life's   resources,   however   lamentable,   are   not 

waste  of  wholly  discouraging.     They  do  not  necessarily 


'-        imply  that  human  nature  is  cursed  by  a  canker 
nish  grounds         of  original  sin  which  nothing  short  of  a  miracle 

can  eradicate.  We  may  even  pluck  a  kind  of 
desperate  hope  from  the  eloquence  of  the  moral  disasters  which 
follow  the  perversion  of  human  powers.  The  hope  is  that  the 
making  of  character  can  follow  the  path  of  directing  human 
energies  into  the  ways  that  are  virtue  and  out  of  the  perver- 
sions that  are  vice.  And  the  encouraging  point  is  that  to  this 
enterprise  there  open  up  so  many,  because  such  life-long 
opportunities.  For  long  after  many  human  powers  have 
reached  their  maximum,  and  even  when  many  energies  have 
begun  to  fail,  it  remains  entirely  possible  to  devise  a  better 
economy  of  life's  resources.  No  stage  of  life  is  too  late  for 
turning  more  to  the  things  that  matter,  and  turning  away  from 
the  things  that  matter  less  or  not  at  all,  or  for  concentrating 
the  energies  upon  the  ends  and  interests,  be  they  intellectual, 
moral  or  social,  which  are  most  worth  caring  for.  For  it  is 
thus  that,  by  a  wise  economy  of  his  powers,  the  man  of 
character  may  go  on  making  more  of  life  even  to  the  end  of 
his  days. 

But  let  no  one  fancy  that  this  can  be  done  unless  some 

preparation  for  it  has  been  laid  in  earlier  years. 
But  this  Sometimes  it  happens  that  the  victim  of  a  bad 

depends  on  the 

direction  of  upbringing  or  a  wayward  life  awakens  to  a  sense 

tari?estfy°eTrs.       of  the  poverty  of  the  aims  on  which  he  has  been 

wasting  his  years,  and  sets  himself  to  change  his 


Development  and  Repression  45 

plan  and  live  for  better  things.  He  may  succeed.  For  changes 
of  character  that  take  the  form  of  changes  of  direction  of  will 
and  effort  are  commoner,  at  least  in  later  life,  than  the  more 
difficult  transitions  from  apathy  and  inertia  to  vigorous  activity. 
But  if  success  is  to  be  assured,  it  will  not  be  by  mere  remorse 
however  keen,  nor  by  mere  resolves  however  good.  For 
change  of  life  means  change  of  moral  valuations ;  and  moral 
valuations  are  not  made  in  a  moment.  They  come  by  slow 
and  gradual  growth.  They  are  the  product  of  the  years  during 
which,  from  childhood  onwards,  the  desires,  sentiments,  tastes, 
habits,  attach  themselves,  with  ever  firmer  grip,  to  the  ends 
and  interests  which  have  been  eagerly  and  steadily  pursued  in 
the  days  of  life's  apprenticeship.  This  is  the  educator's  oppor- 
tunity. It  is  for  him,  by  directing  the  rising  currents  of  life's 
stream  into  the  right  channels,  to  prepare  the  way  for  those 
sane  and  sound  moral  valuations  which  are  the  surest  of  all 
securities  for  a  good  economy  of  life's  resources.  Nor  will  the 
gain  of  this  appear  only  in  development,  for  development  is 
also  the  path  to  discipline  and  repression. 


CHAPTER    VI 
DEVELOPMENT  AND   REPRESSION 

As  human  nature  is  constituted,  all  development  involves 
repression.     The  natural   man   left  to  himself      Development 
would  speedily  make  the  discovery  that  harmony  involves 
was  not  the  law  of  his  life.     The  multiplicity  rePression- 
and  the  conflict  of  his  proclivities  would  teach  him  that  the 
appetites  to  which  he  gives  the  rein  have  their  sacrifices  as 
well  as  their  satisfactions.     Far  more  is  this  the  case  later  on. 
For  if  social   life?  with   all   its   institutions   from  the   Family 


46  Development  and  Repression 

onwards,  is  a  contrivance  for  multiplying  wants  and  satis- 
factions, so  that  the  civilised  man's  poverty  would  be  the 
savage's  wealth,  this  has  its  obverse.  Why  is  it,  asks  Carlyle, 
that  every  considerable  town,  though  it  cannot  boast  a  library, 
can  show  a  prison?  Why  is  it,  we  might  further  ask,  that 
every  citizen  who  walks  its  streets  carries  in  himself  a  prison  — 
a  prison  in  which  under  watch  and  ward  lie  those  criminals  of 
Mansoul  whom  he  dare  not  amnesty?  Why  is  it,  if  it  be  not 
that,  as  nurture  supervenes  upon  nature,  Repression  is  the 
very  shadow  of  Development  ? 

There  is,  however,  here  a  notable  difference  between  rival 

Thou  h  ail        plans   of  education.     For   though   every   plan, 

educational          even  that  which  sent  St  Simeon  Stylites  to  his 

tachfdTboth         loathsome  pillar,  involves  development  as  well 

development        as  repression,  the  relative  proportions  of  these 

and  repres-  ,  ,,,  . 

sion,  the  reia-  two  aspects  may  vastly  vary.  We  need  not  now 
tivepropor-  perplex  ourselves  with  the  question  what  is  the 

tions  vary. 

just  proportion,  or  indeed  if,  in  a  world  where 
ascetics  and  sybarites  seem  to  have  so  much  to  learn  from 
each  other,  there  is  any  absolute  proportion  to  be  found. 
Enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  point  out  certain  aspects 
in  which  the  more  repressive  systems  labour  under  marked 
and  even  fatal  disadvantages  of  a  practical  kind. 

Not  that  the  ascetics  are  by  any  means  without  a   case. 

Convinced,  by  a  large  experience,  of  the  dire 

systems  have       possibilities  of  sin  and  vice,  they  strike  at  the 

heart    °f    the     Cvil   m    a   ^    wmch>    it:   must    be 

granted,  is  thorough.  They  attack  temptation 
by  removing  its  objects ;  and  not  only  those  objects  which  on 
the  face  of  them  are  vile  and  infamous,  but  many  others — 
wealth,  for  example,  or  social  intercourse,  or  art,  or  recreation — 

which,  though  in  themselves  neither  infamous 
safety Way  °f  nor  v^e>  mignt  Yet  by  possible  perversion  become 

stones  of  stumbling  and  rocks  of  offence.  To 
sweep  these  objects  out  of  life,  or  to  flee  from  the  life  that 


Development  and  Repression  47 

offers  them — this  to  them  is  the  way  of  safety.  Convinced, 
also,  that  it  is  through  the  encouragement  and  multiplication 
of  wants  and  cravings  that  human  life  becomes  fatally  depen- 
dent upon  externals,  the  command  and  control  of  which  may 
lie  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  the  will,  they  urge  the  policy  of 
minimising  desires  and  interests,  of  refusing  to 
"give  hostages  to  fortune,"  and  of  finding  rest  sufficingness 
and  moral  independence  in  a  life  that  is  content  °*  *he  s^P1* 
with  the  few  great  simple  satisfying  and  enduring 
things  which  are,  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  within  the  grasp 
of  the  human  spirit.  Hence  from  the  days  of  the  ancient 
Cynics  to  the  latter-day  Gospel  of  Wordsworth,  the  hortatory 
pleas  for  the  simple  life — the  simple  life  which  stands  secure 
upon  itself,  and  which  has  seldom  failed  to  exercise  its  fascina- 
tion in  epochs  when  the  greed  for  luxuries  and  the  cult  of 
worldliness  have  left  their  votaries  rich  only  in  dissatisfactions 
and  disgusts.  Nor  does  one  need  to  be  an  ascetic  to  see  that 
it  may  seem  a  doubtful  policy  to  fill  the  heart  with  cravings  for 
objects  for  which  it  may  hunger  long  and  in  vain,  or  which  it 
may  appropriate  only  to  find  that  they  are  to  the  last  degree 
precarious.  Least  of  all  if  it  be  true — and  to  ascetics  of  all 
shades  it  is  a  profound  truth — that  it  is  the  simplest,  and  most 
attainable  and  enduring  things  that  are  the  best. 

Nor  can  it  be  denied   that  there  is  inevitably  an  ascetic 
element  in  every  life,  if  life  be  work.     If  we 
sometimes  say  of  the  favourites  of  Fortune  who   life  demands 
have  "grasped  the  skirts  of  happy  chance,"  that  Renunciation- 
they  have  enjoyed  all  the  world  has  to  give,  this  is  not  true 
at  any  rate  of  those  by  whom  the  work  of  the  world  is  done. 
Life  is  not  built  upon  that  plan.     Ruled  from  end  to  end  by 
the  iron  law  of  specialisation,  the  price  for  work  well  done  is 
surrender    of    much.     The    careers  of    craftsman,  merchant, 
lawyer,  doctor,  politician,   student,   inexorably  demand   their 
respective  sacrifices ;  and  most  of  all,  of  course,  in  proportion 
as  they  are  pursued  with  the  single  eye  and  the  dutiful  spirit. 


48  Development  and  Repression 

For  life  means  choice,  and  choice,  on  its  negative  side,  means 
renunciation.  "Ten  years  ago,"  wrote  Cobden  from  Wales, 
"  before  I  was  an  agitator,  I  spent  a  day  or  two  in  this  house. 
Comparing  my  sensations  now  with  those  I  then  experienced, 
I  feel  how  much  I  have  lost  in  winning  public  fame."  Nor  is 
it  doubtful  that  many  who  have  won  lesser  as  well  as  greater 
things  than  public  fame,  could,  from  a  life-long  experience, 
re-echo  the  words. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  overlooked  that,  in  a  materialistic  age  and  a 
pleasure-loving  civilisation,  asceticism  is,  to  say  the  least,  the 
safer  extreme — if  only  one  were  sure  that  it  would  be  most 
laid  to  heart  by  the  children  of  luxury  who  need  it  most,  and 
least  or  not  at  all  by  the  children  of  light  who  need  it  not 
at  all. 

And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  asceticism  is  not  the  best  path  to 
development.  It  is  not  even  the  most  effective 

Yet  ascetic  ,         r  ,  .  .  ,   P 

systems  are  P^an  for  securing  that  repression  to  the  need  for 
not  sufficiently  which  it  is  so  keenly  alive.  To  put  the  matter 

positive.  .  7. 

paradoxically,  repressive  or  ascetic  systems  are 
not  sufficiently  positive  to  be  effectually  negative.  They  are 
not  generous  enough,  or  tolerant  enough,  of  the  proclivities 
they  encourage,  to  enable  them  to  deal  effectively  with  those 
they  would  repress.  For  when  we  wish  to  subjugate  an 
appetite,  it  is  not  enough  simply  to  check  it,  however  harshly. 
All  the  locks  and  bolts  of  mere  repression  will  not  suffice. 
Rather  must  we  seek  till  we  find  and  can  foster  some  other 
desire  in  the  presence  of  which  the  obnoxious  appetite  may 
find  it  hard  to  live.  How,  for  example,  may  we  best  deal  with 
congenital  timidity?  Impatience,  derision,  scorn,  threatened 
disgrace — is  it  by  these?  Or  is  it  not  rather  by  striving 
patiently  to  awaken  a  passion  for  some  person  or  some  cause, 
for  love  of  which  even  the  timid  may  stand  up  like  a  man  ?  So 
Passion  must  w^  greed  of  gain,  or  of  praise,  or  of  pleasure, 
be  used  to  oust  Flouts  and  sneers,  however  cutting,  warnings  of 
consequences,  however  impressive,  are  after  all 


Development  and  Repression  49 

but  under-agents,  and  not  for  a  moment  to  be  given  the  first 
place,  so  long  as  there  is  any  hope  of  arousing  an  interest  in 
men  or  things  strong  enough  to  outrival  and  displace  these 
baser  passions.  This  is  the  meaning  of  that  phrase  "the 
expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection."  For  evil  appetites  and 
passions  do  not  yield  most  readily  to  direct  assault.  Passion 
must  be  evoked  to  cast  out  passion.  And  if  once  heart  and 
mind  be  filled  with  strong  positive  interests,  the  rest  will  come 
of  itself.  For  these  wholesome  incentives  will,  ever  increasingly, 
occupy  the  soul,  and,  if  only  they  be  skilfully  fostered,  will 
strike  up  alliances  with  one  another,  till  the  promptings  we 
wish  to  get  rid  of  will  gradually  be  ousted  from  their  squalid  or 
knavish  tenancy.  For  development  and  repression  are  not  two 
things,  but  one ;  all  genuine  development  already  carries  in  it 
repression  of  much. 

It  is  precisely  here,  however,  that  the  more  repressive 
systems  fail.  Suspicious  of  human  nature,  they 
frown  upon  so  many  natural  desires  that  they  0f™ce7icfskmeSS 
fatally  narrow  the  range  of  positive  appeal. 
Fearful,  and  not  without  reason,  of  the  world,  the  devil,  and 
the  flesh,  they  purge  human  life  so  effectually  that  they 
are  impelled  to  draw  their  positive  incentives  from  an  ever- 
diminishing  store.  They  are  driven  to  this  because  were  their 
powers  equal  to  their  plans,  they  would  cut  up  by  the  roots 
not  only  those  desires  which  are  actually  fruitful  of  evil,  but  all 
desires  which  might,  by  possible  perversion,  become  a  snare. 
Hence  ascetic  systems  are  inevitably  driven  in  two  directions. 
On  the  one  hand,  so  far  as  their  methods  are  positive,  they 
build  upon  a  few  exceptional  motives,  love  of  God,  passion 
for  souls,  self-sacrifice,  if  not  self-immolation,  absolute  devotion 
to  a  Church  or  a  Brotherhood :  on  the  other,  they  make 
wholesale  use  of  Pain  as  an  instrument  of  repression. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  disparage  either  of  these  resources. 
It  is  exceptional  motives  that  make  exceptional  men ;  but 
then,  being  exceptional,  they  are  not  to  be  counted  upon  in 


5O  Development  and  Repression 

ordinary  mortals,  in  whom  they  are  so  apt,  to  borrow  a  phrase 
of  Ruskin,  "  to  be  inconstant  almost  in  propor- 

The  strength  .  1-11  <>       T  i  -11 

and  weakness  tion  to  their  nobleness.  It  may  be  possible  to 
IQ^  a  c^osen  religi°us  or  political  Brotherhood 
upon  them ;  but  they  will  hardly  suffice  for  the 
daily  diet  of  the  rank  and  file.  The  ordinary  incentives,  it  is 
true,  being  ordinary,  may  call  for  no  particular  admiration. 
What  are  they  but  the  love  of  kindred  and  the  charities  of 
home,  the  kindliness  of  neighbourhood,  the  desire  to  keep 
what  is  honestly  our  own,  the  enjoyments  of  comfort  and 
modest  luxury,  the  maintenance  of  our  good  name,  the  cheerful 
intercourse  of  social  life  ?  But  they  will  rise  in  our  estimation, 
when  we  learn  by  experience  their  power  to  supersede  motives 
that  are  not  ordinary  only  because  they  are  extraordinarily 
frivolous,  base  or  vicious. 

Nor,  passing  to  the  second  resource,  need  it  be  disputed 

Pain  as  an         ^^  ^a*n  *s  *  Power^ul  instrument.     This  has 
instrument  of        been  already  granted1.     We  may  freely  admit 
that  it  may  become,  in  wise  hands,  as  Aristotle 
calls  it,  nothing  less  than  "a  rudder  of  education2." 

Yet   we   must  not  expect  too  much  from  it.     In  itself  it 
Butits  makes    for   death,   not    for  life.      It   nurtures 

results  nothing.      It   is   negative,   inhibitive :    and   its 

value  will  depend  upon  the  independent  strength 
and  worth  of  the  tendencies  which  it  releases.  It  does  not 
nurture  them:  it  only  gives  them  play.  Add  to  this  that  it 
means  cost.  Always,  by  its  very  nature,  it  tends  to  lower 
general  vitality.  Has  it  not  even  been  defined  as  a  con- 
sciousness of  lowered  vitality  ?  And  though  this  fact  may  be 
hidden  by  the  extraordinary  energy  of  the  particular  aversions 
it  inspires,  it  brings  with  it  no  positive  compensation  for  the 
expenditure  of  vitality  on  which  it  thus  mercilessly  draws. 
Which  of  us  cannot  recall  cases,  cases  of  lives,  weak  in  all 
things  except  the  rigour  of  their  asceticisms,  which  have  been 
1  p.  24  et  seq.  2  Ethics,  Bk  X.  i.  I. 


Development  and  Repression  51 

so  effectually  disciplined  by  pain  that  there  is  nothing  before 
them  but  chronic  depression  of  soul  ? 

It  is  the  weakness  of  ascetic  systems,  whether  they  come 
in  the  guise  of  Cynic,  Stoic,  Anchorite,  Monk,  Puritan,  that 
they  are  apt  to  alternate  between  these  two  expedients.  In  so 
far  as  they  are  positive — and  it  is  a  libel  upon  them  to  say  that 
they  are  only  repressive — they  would  people  the  world  with 
saints,  devotees  and  fanatics :  this  failing,  they  would  turn  it 
into  a  House  of  Correction. 

These  alternatives,   however,  are   happily  not   exhaustive. 
We  may  pursue   another  and   a  very  different      The  stron  est 
course  of  policy.     We  may  distrust  human  nature   argument 
less.     We  may  see  in  men's  desires  promise,  not  afcetkJsm  is 
menace.     We   may  reject  the   violent   dualism  found  in  the 

,.        .  reasonableness 

that  sets  inclinations  and  duties  in  implacable  of  less  repres- 
hostility.     We  may  believe  that  the  life  that  has  siv«  systems, 
found   satisfaction   for   many  a   desire   which   lies   under  the 
ascetic  ban  attains  a  fuller  realisation  even  for  our  most  spiritual 
and   rational   part.     We   may  follow   the   philosophy  that,  as 
result  of  its  analysis,  declares  that,  whatever  be  the  appetites 
that   seem   to  link   the   man   to   the  brute,  there  is  even  in 
these,  and  how  much  more  in  desires  of  which  the  brute  is 
incapable,    the   infusion   of  a  spiritual   and   rational   element 
which  lends  itself  to  direction  towards  higher  satisfactions. 

Nor  can  it  be  granted  that  the  ascetic  ideal  opens  up  the 
best  path  to  that  moral  independence  and  self-      For  asceti- 
sufficingness  which  it  so  justifiably  exalts.     If  a  cism  does  not 

ensure  the 

man  can  be  rich  in  his  own  soul,  as  the  ancient  truest  self. 
Cynics  averred,  even  when  he  is  a  beggar  in  all  sufficin&ness ; 
besides,  it  is  desirable  to  withhold  our  tribute  of  imitation  till 
we  see  what  his  spiritual  riches  really  are.     We  must  satisfy 
ourselves   that  he   who  prides  himself  on  possessing  his  own 
soul  and  nothing  else  has  left  himself  a  soul  worth  possessing. 
For  there  are  limits  where  self-mortification  begins  to  pass  into 
self-slaughter.       An  ascetic,  let  us  suppose,  vows  poverty,  and 


52  Development  and  Repression 

of  course  he  escapes  thereby  the  sordid  vices  that  cluster  round 
money.  But  he  also  shuts  out  the  possibilities  of  the  virtues 
of  commercial  honour,  of  liberality,  of  munificence.  A  puritan 
turns  his  back  upon  Music  and  the  Drama,  and  doubtless  he 
escapes  the  snares  of  dilettantism  thereby.  But  he  also  qualifies 
himself  to  fail  to  rejoice  in  Beethoven  and  Shakespeare.  The 
way  of  safety  becomes  the  path  to  spiritual  starvation. 

Similarly  with  the  alluring"  independence  "  of  the  simple  life. 
Grant  that  it  is  no  vain  dream  of  enthusiasts. 

nor  the 

securest  inde-       Grant  that  it  may  be  noble,  carefree,  secure  and 

pendence. 


Emerson,  "and  I  will  make  the  pomp  of  emperors  ridiculous." 
Yet  there  is  another  and  a  better  way.  For  it  is  not  the  life 
of  few  resources,  however  elevated  and  pure,  that  is  the  most 
truly  independent.  It  is  rather  the  life  of  the  man  who  has 
been  able  to  gather  up  into  his  will  and  sympathies  the  many 
and  varied  interests  which  a  civilised  social  life  offers  in  rich 
profusion,  and  who  thereby  stands  strong  against  the  world, 
because  where  he  is  blocked  and  baffled  in  one  direction,  he 
has  tfre  resourcefulness  that  can  find  much  else  that  makes  life 
worth  living1.  For  aloofness  is  not  independence.  Indepen- 
dence comes  through  dependence  —  that  kind  of  dependence 
which  makes  the  individual  sympathetic,  sociable,  many-sided, 
and  resourceful.  For  it  is  fallacious  to  infer  that,  because 
some  desires  are  corrupt,  and  all  desires  corruptible,  the  desires 
in  general  must  be  cut  up  by  the  roots.  For  this  is  to  fling 
away,  like  ignorant  and  impatient  craftsmen,  the  very  instru- 
ments which  Nature  puts  into  the  educator's  hands.  The  wiser 
mind,  which  is  also  the  more  tolerant  and  hopeful  mind,  will 
rather  set  itself  with  anxious  care  to  seek  out  those  desires  of 
which  we  believe  that  most  can  be  made,  and  lay  our  plans  to 
find  for  them  their  appropriate  and  timely  nurture  ;  in  the 
reasonable  hope  that  those  who  have  been  thus  taught  to  find 
themselves  capable  of  much  good  will  become  less  capable  of 
i  Cf.  p.  252. 


Development  and  Repression  53 

much  evil.  Sensual,  mean,  frivolous,  vicious  desires  will  still 
arise  to  thwart,  and  sometimes  to  destroy,  our  work.  The  best 
of  educations  cannot  obviate  this.  But  the  hope  is  that,  when 
they  come,  their  objects  will  no  longer  possess  their  malign 
attraction.  And  this,  not  so  much  by  any  success  we  may 
have  had  in  associating  pains  and  penalties,  sufferings  and 
disgusts,  with  their  indulgence,  as  because  fulness  of  wholesome 
life,  and  the  hopeful  struggle  forwards  after  many  a  cherished 
and  justifiable  satisfaction,  will  furnish  a  strong  security  against 
descent  upon  the  lower  appetites.  In  other  words,  we  must 
hold  fast  to  the  more  practical  policy  of  repressing  the  desires 
that  need  repression  by  developing  the  desires  which,  in  the 
light  of  a  more  generous  ideal,  demand  development. 


54  Habit  and  its  Limitations 


CHAPTER  VII 

HABIT  AND   ITS   LIMITATIONS 

IF,  then,  repression  is  best  secured  by  development,  it 
follows  that  the  main  part  of  education  is  its 
positive  side ;  and  the  next  question  is  how  to 
proceed.  Nature  herself  here  gives  us  the  clue. 
For  it  is  the  shortcomings  of  Nature  that  furnish  the  oppor- 
tunities for  education.  We  have  seen  where  the  weakness  lies. 
The  instincts  (or  desires)  are  transitory,  intermittent,  and 
indefinite  in  the  double  sense,  firstly,  that  they  always  lack 
something  of  the  certainty  of  animal  instinct,  and,  secondly, 
that  even  when  pronounced,  they  are  morally  indeterminate. 
A  human  being  who  had  nothing  more  would  be  doomed  to 
failure  on  the  very  threshold  of  morality.  He  would  be 
unequal  to  the  ordinary  constant  monotonous  demands  of 
natural,  still  more  of  social,  environment.  If  he  is  ever  to 
grow  to  virtue,  the  transitory  must  become  the  permanent,  the 
intermittent  the  persistent,  the  indeterminate  the  definite.  The 
"  weight  of  chance  desires "  must  be  thrown  off,  and  the 
individual  must  come  to  confront  the  world  with  a  stable  and 
calculable  inner  life  of  his  own. 

For  there  is  a  world  of  difference  between  the  life  that  is 
the  mere  satisfaction  of  desires  and  the  life  in  which  the 
satisfaction  of  desires  has  been  made  tributary  to  the  making 
of  a  character.  Two  youths  may  start  together  on  life's  race, 
and,  to  begin  with,  there  may  be  little  to  choose  between  them. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  55 

Both   may   be   eager-hearted,    sanguine,   hungry   for   satisfac- 
tions.    But,  when  twenty  years  have  passed,  how      Much  sat.g 
complete  may  be  the  contrast.     For  the   one  faction  of 
may  have  lived  for  nothing  more  than  the  passions 


and  the  pursuits  of  the  hour  :  and,  if  he  has  done   moral 

.......  ,  ...       character. 

no  more  than  that,  he  will  be  no  better,  possibly 
he  may  be  greatly  worse,  in  character  than  he  was  in   his 
schooldays.     He  will  have  had  many  experiences  of  course, 
and  he  may  even  pride  himself  upon  them  ;   but  it  is  entirely 
possible   to   have   had   much   experience   and   to   have    little 
morality.     The  other,  we  shall  suppose,  has  had  a  happier  lot. 
His  desires  have  not  been  left  to  work  their  wayward  will. 
His  experience  has  not  been  barren  of  all  except  experience. 
By  the  directing  hand  of  parent  and  teacher,  and  by  enlistment 
in  the  service  of  men  or  institutions  that  stand  for  ends  worth 
living]  for,  his  desires  have  been  made  tributary  to  a  plan  of 
life,  and  his  progressive  experiences  have  brought  him,  as  the 
years  ran  their  course,  to  confront  the  world  with  something 
of  a  compact  and  persistent  self.     This  is  no  fancied  contrast. 
It  is  verified  in  ten  thousand  instances  in  which  all  the  promise 
of  youthful  desire  proves  "  empty  and  in  vain  "   (to  use  the 
words  of  Aristotle)  because  the  so-called  satisfactions  of  the 
years  have  left  the  soul  as  undeveloped  and  as  void  of  self- 
control  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  life's  race1.      Hence  the 
And   of   the    question    he    put,    How    is    this   need  for 
disaster  to   be  avoided?  the  first  part   of  the  habits' 
answer  is  that  the  desires  must  be  transformed  into  habits. 
This  transformation  is,  at  any  rate  in  its  more  superficial 
aspects,  no  mystery.     Since  Aristotle  wrote  the 
Second  Book  of  the  Ethics,  the  ethical  teachers  formed  by 
of  the  world  have  been  repeating  that  virtuous   *£J)sropriate 
habits   are   formed   when   natural    desires    are 
guided  to  appropriate  acts.     No  human  tendency  is  developed 
by  empty  wishes,  unless  it  be  the  tendency  to  indulge  in  empty 
1  Cf.  Plato's  Gorgias,  especially  the  simile  of  the  "  leaky  vessels,"  pp.  493-4. 


56  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

wishes ;  and  the  better  the  wishes  the  worse  the  failure.  For, 
in  Aristotle's  memorable  simile,  the  prize  is  given  to  the  man 
who  has  won  it  in  dust  and  heat ;  not  to  the  spectator  for  his 
strength  and  beauty,  however  great  they  be.  This  is  indeed  the 
law  of  every  aptitude :  it  finds  its  illustration  in  every  art  — 
from  those  ordinary  handicrafts,  to  which  the  Greek  moralists 
are  so  rich  in  reference,  up  to  the  greater  art  of  Life.  For 
men  are  not  cunningly  devised  machines  which  go  unaltered 
in  structure  till  they  wear  themselves  out  into  old  lumber. 
They  are  alive,  and  it  is  the  fundamental  property  of  living 
structure  that  by  acting  it  modifies  itself.  Physiologists  tell  us 
that  our  nervous  and  muscular  systems  "grow 

Ine  boul, 

like  the  Body,  to  the  modes  in  which  they  have  been  exer- 
modesinthe  cised." l  Do  we  not  know  it  ?  Do  not  our  every 
which  it  is  day  neighbours  carry,  even  in  their  outward  man, 

exercised.  ......  -    .  .  ,  i        j 

the  visible  signs  of  their  vocation,  the  sure  hand, 
the  light  step,  the  rounded  muscle,  the  light  touch?  The  same 
law  holds  of  the  soul,  of  which  the  nervous  system  so  often 
serves  as  a  helpful  diagram.  //  to  be  sure  is  not  visible  ;  it  has 
not  even,  except  in  a  metaphorical  sense  a  "  structure  "  at  all, 
and  by  consequence  it  is  infinitely  harder  to  conjecture  what 
it  is  that  is  going  on  in  it  when  a  habit  is  forming  than  it  is 
even  in  the  sufficiently  baffling  domain  of  physiology.  Yet  the 
fact  is  there,  be  its  secret  history  what  it  may.  Our  souls,  like 
our  bodies,  "  grow  to  the  modes  in  which  they  are  exercised." 
It  is  by  striving  to  act  that  our  desires  come  to  a  fuller,  more 
persistent  and  more  definite  development.  And,  as  Aristotle 
long  ago  declared,  it  is  by  the  repetition  of  actions  that  the 
corresponding  desires  are  organised  into  habits.2 

When  we  say  "  actions,"  however,  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind 

1  Carpenter,  cited  by  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i.  p.  112. 
It  will  be  obvious  that  my  debt  to  Professor  James'  chapter  on  Habit,  as 
well  as  to  that  on  Instinct,  is  great.     From  admiration  to  appropriation 
there  is  but  a  step. 

2  Ethics,  Bk.  n.  c.  i.  8. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  57 

that  the  word  is  not  to  be  construed  too  narrowly.     It  is  not 
those  outward  and  overt  performances,  such  as     The  actions 
we  can  most  easily  compel,  that  really  form  the  *h»t  form  the 

...  „      .  L  T    .  L     ,       f  moral  habits 

habits  we  call  virtues.  It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  are  not  mereiy 
that  —  unless  we  are  prepared  to  say  that  Soul  is  outward- 
Body  —  it  is  the  repetition  of  psychical  states  that  are  the 
causes  of  the  formation  of  moral  habits.  The  psychical  state 
no  doubt  may  have  its  physiological  concomitants.  For,  so 
far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  it  would  seem  that  this  is  always 
the  case.  Yet  if  the  psychical  states,  or  to  be  more  specific,  if 
the  strivings  of  desire  be  not  induced,  the  moral  habit  will  not 
be  formed,  not  even  though  we  could  compel  the  whole 
physical  side  of  the  performance,  including  the  most  secret 
neural  and  muscular  movements.  When  therefore  we  adopt 
the  familiar  statement  that  habits  come  of  repeated  actions,  it 
is  clearly  to  be  understood  that  the  actions  cover,  as  main 
element,  the  psychical  side  of  outward  performance. 

This  may  be  an  obvious,  but   it  is  not  an  unimportant 
reminder.     There  is  many  a  parent  who  deludes 
himself  into  the  comforting  belief  that  when  he 
has  secured  the  persistent  performance  of  out- 

actions  which 

ward  acts,  he  is  on  the  certain  path  to  the  appeaito 
forming  of  habits  in  his  children.  And  of 
course  he  will  have  done  something  towards  the 
formation  of  bodily  habits.  But  his  progress  towards  the 
formation  of  virtuous  habits  may  be  meagre  to  the  last  degree. 
Virtuous  habits  are  never  thus  to  be  mechanically  wrought  in 
from  without.  There  have  been  extreme  thinkers  who  have 
held  that  outward  behaviour  has  so  little  to  do  with  the  moral 
life  that  even  gross  misbehaviour  is  of  trifling  moment.  It  is 
but  a  distorted  version  of  the  fact  that  the  significance  of  an 
action  in  building  up  the  character  is  insignificant,  unless  the 
action  have  behind  it  a  corresponding  activity  of  the  soul's 
life.  The  actions  whose  repetition  is  really  of  moment  are 
those  which  elicit  those  strong  stirrings  of  native  capacity  and 


58  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

instinct  for  which  it  is  the  business  of  education  to  be  for  ever 
on  the  watch.  Two  children,  for  instance,  may  repeatedly 
imitate  the  same  example.  How  different  the  result,  if  in  the 
one  case  the  imitative  acts  are  the  monkey-like  aping  of  mere 
outward  performance,  and  in  the  other  the  congenial  expres- 
sion of  a  strong  instinct  which  was  but  waiting  for  the 
example  to  liberate  it  into  vigorous  life.  This  is  but  one 
illustration  of  a  general  law.  For  nothing  is 
of  rtudying06  more  vital  in  this  forming  of  habits  by  acts  than 


our  concrete         watchful  study  of  the  material  we  are  dealing 

material. 

with.  It  is  only  then  that  the  acts  we  enjoin 
will  do  their  required  work,  not  simply  because  they  are 
repeated,  but  because  at  each  repetition  they  evoke  and 
confirm  inherent  capacity  and  instinctive  striving. 

This  difficulty  of  adapting  enjoined  act  to  inherent  pro- 

clivity is  however  vastly  simplified  for  us  by  the 

^act  tnat  young  life  is  not  given  to  be  secretive. 
is  mainly  one  ft  js>  on  the  contrary,  frankly,  untiringly,  even 

inconsiderately  demonstrative.  And  by  conse- 
quence it  gives  us  much  to  choose  from.  "  Herein  lies  the 
utility  of  the  restlessness,  the  exuberant  activity,  the  varied 
playfulness,  the  prying  curiosity,  the  inquisitiveness,  the 
meddlesome  mischievousness,  the  vigorous  and  healthy 
experimentalism  of  the  young.  These  afford  the  raw  material 
upon  which  intelligence  exercises  its  power  of  selection."1 
Not,  of  course,  to  begin  with,  the  unaided  intelligence  of  the 
young  themselves;  but  the  wisdom  of  older  heads,  whose 
business  it  is  to  select  from  these  exuberant  movements,  and 
by  encouragement  to  impart  to  those  selected  the  stability  of 
Habit. 

When  this  is  done,  the  advantages  which  follow  are  so 

familiar  as  to  need  but  the  briefest  statement. 

Advantages 

of  wen-formed      With  each  repetition  the  act  becomes  easier. 
As  the  grown   man  walks  and  runs  without  a 
1  Lloyd  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  162. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  59 

trace  of  the  stumbling  efforts  of  the  two-year-old,  so  does  he, 
with  the  acquired  facility  of  "  second  nature,"      ,.  Action 
fulfil  the  moralities  which  once  needed  all  the   becomes 
incitements  and  restraints  of  watchful  discipline.   e 
This    does  not   mean   that   life   on   the   whole   will    become 
easier.     It  becomes  more  difficult  for  most  as  the  years  go  on. 
But  if  we  are  able  to  grapple  with  new  difficulties,  it  will  be 
because  old  ones  have  become  easy. 

Closely  bound  up  with  this  is  the  further  advantage  that, 
as  a  habit  grows,  conscious  attention  upon  its  (b)  Conscious 
conditions  is  minimised,  and  thereby  made  attention  is 
available  for  other  purposes.  The  knitter,  the  c 
musician,  the  fencer,  the  bicycle  rider,  all  know  this  well. 
Why  this  should  be  so  is  far  from  obvious.  A  priori,  it  might 
even  be  expected  that,  by  every  repetition  of  a  more  or  less 
conscious  act,  the  act  would  become  more  conscious.  But  the 
fact  is  otherwise.  When  the  habit  is  sufficiently  formed  to 
subserve  its  purpose,  consciousness  retires  from  the  scene  like 
an  artist  whose  task  is  done.1  This,  however,  does  not  imply 
that  the  habit  has  become  wholly  a  thing  of  physical  auto- 
matism. It  would  be  a  lame  conclusion  to  prolonged  moral 
effort  that  a  habit  became  a  mere  thing  of  nerves  and  muscles. 
The  fact  is  that  the  psychical  roots  of  the  habit  are  not  cut 
but  only  buried.  Let  but  the  most  automatic  of  habits  be 
inhibited,  perhaps  by  outward  interference,  perhaps  by  inward 
temptation :  the  commotion  of  soul  that  ensues  is  proof 
sufficient  that  the  feelings  and  desires  that  lie  behind  are 
abundantly  alive. 

Nor  is  it  to  be   supposed   that  this  unconsciousness   of 
habits  robs  their  possessor  of  the  sense  of  se-      (c)  In  form. 
curity  that  comes  of  the  knowledge  that  habits  ins  habits  each 

i  -i  f  j          T         f         •  i     i_  •  i         man  makes  a 

have   been  formed.      In    forming    habits    the  moral  tradition 
individual  is  making  a  moral  tradition  for  him-   for  himself- 
self.     He  has  ever  at  hand  the  consolation  that,  as  it  takes 
1  Stout,  Analytical  Psychology,  vol.  I.  p.  265. 


60  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

many  an  act  to  make  a  habit,  it  likewise  takes  many  to  break 
one.  "Can  the  just  man  act  unjustly?"  asks  Aristotle.1 
And  it  is  no  idle  question.  For  though  of  course  the  justest 
of  men  may,  in  the  hour  of  temptation,  yield  to  do  the  unjust 
thing,  and  seem  by  the  grievous  lapse  of  a  moment  to  demolish 
the  painfully  won  virtue  of  many  a  year,  the  just  habit  within 
him  will  not  so  easily  fall  before  assault.  It  will  remain  to 
part  the  injustice  of  the  just  by  a  great  gulf  from  the  congenial 
frauds  of  the  reprobate. 

From  this  simple  account  of  habit  there  follow  applications. 

Applications      S°me  of  these  are  so  trite  as  to  need  few  words. 

'  i.  Begin  Thus  it  is  the  tritest  of  maxims,  to  begin  early ; 

and  this  partly  for  the  simple  reason  that  early 
years  are  the  years  of  plasticity,  partly  also  because  there  are 
then  as  yet  no  old  habits  with  which  the  new  have  to  establish 
a  modus  vivendi.  Hence  those  seemingly  boundless  possi- 
bilities of  childhood  which  have  led  some  with  Wordsworth 2  to 
view  the  growth  of  habits  as  a  passage  into  bondage.  It  is  as 
well  to  remember,  however,  that  it  is  possible  to  begin  too 
early.  In  the  creation  of  a  habit  of  physical  endurance,  for 
example,  or  a  habit  of  thrift,  nothing  is  easier  than  to  fall  into 
the  errors  of  premature  grafting.  For  all  strong  and  stable 
habits  must  have,  as  we  have  seen,  instincts  at  their  root,  and 
it  often  needs  time,  freedom,  and  indulgence,  to  bring  the 
young  to  reveal  the  instincts  that  they  offer  to  us  for  treat- 
ment. Parents  in  a  hurry  do  well  to  find  patience  in  the 
knowledge  that  instincts  are  often  enough  "deferred."3 

Equally  trite  is  the  maxim   that  growth   cannot  here   be 

forced.     An  obvious  reason  is  that  Habit  comes 

2.    borne 

reasons  why  of  repetition,  and  repetition  takes  time  :  a  less 
habitshis°not  to  obvious,  that  between  the  repetitions,  must  come 
be  forced.  intervals  not  to  be  abridged.  For  it  would  seem 

1  Ethics,  Bk.  v.  c.  ix.  16. 

2  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality » 
8  See  p.  2. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  61 

that  habits  are  forming  not  only  in  the  periods  when  the 
formative  acts  are  being  done.  Something  goes  on  likewise 
in  the  intervals  between  the  acts.  How  often  in  the  physical 
habits — skating,  shall  we  say,  or  bicycling  —  we  leave  off 
with  the  unwilling  certainty  that  no  more  progress  is  to  be 
made  then  and  there  —  only  to  discover,  when  we  make  our 
next  essay,  that  we  seem  to  have  improved  in  the  interval. 
Whence  the  staggering  paradox,  cited  by  James,  that  we  learn 
to  swim  during  the  winter,  and  to  skate  during  the  summer  ! l 
There  may  of  course  be  nothing  here  more  occult  than  recovery 
from  fatigue.  For  the  failures  of  fatigue  may  bring  a  knowledge 
of  how  a  thing  can  be  done  which  the  vigour  of  restored  powers 
enables  us  for  the  first  time  effectively  to  utilise.  But  there 
may  be  more.  Secret  adjustments  and  adaptations  may  still 
be  going  on  in  what  we  call  intervals  of  rest.  It  is  possible 
that  something  similar  may  take  place  in  the  growth  of  habits 
not  physical.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  is  room  enough  for  the 
familiar  reminder  that  habits  grow  by  the  imperceptible  accre- 
tions of  many  days.  And  this,  not  only  because  the  presevering 
youth  may,  as  Professor  James  so  cheerily  remarks,2  "  wake  up 
some  fine  morning  to  find  himself  one  of  the  competent  ones 
of  his  generation,"  but  also  because,  if  he  do  not  take  heed  to 
his  steps,  he  may  find  himself,  before  he  is  aware,  in  the  strong 
grip  of  some  stealthy  vice. 

It   is   less   incontrovertible    that,   in    habit-forming    (and 
habit-breaking),  preference  should  be  given  to  a 
strong  and  decided  initiative.    For  this  of  course  ve3rs  ™C 
is  what  every  advocate  of  the  gradual  well-devised  the  sraduai 

.    .  .     .  J f  11-  u     j-  initiative. 

initiations  of  a  moral  hygiene  would  dispute. 
They  have  their  reasons.     They  can  argue  that  average  human 
nature  is  not  to  be  counted  upon  for  strong  initiative  either  of 
feeling,  impulse,  or  resolve.     They  can  point  to  the  dangers 
of  reaction  under  burdens  beyond  the  strength,  and  denounce 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I.  p.  1 10. 
*Ib.  vol.  i.  p.  127. 


62  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

with  justice  the  masterful  impotence  of  the  "  strong-minded  n 
parent  or  teacher  who  will  abate  nothing  of  his  demands  to 
suit  the  individual  case. 

Yet  the  central  fact  remains  that,  in  all  cases  where  there  is 

pronounced  proclivity  to  appeal  to,  the  policy 

in  favourTf  *        °f  strong  initiative  has  decisive  arguments  in 

the  strong  jts  favour.     It  enlists  in  its  service  a  volume  of 

initiative.  ...  . 

feeling,  and,  in  adult  years,  an  effort  of  resolve ; 
and  it  ensures  decided  self-committal  in  respect  of  circum- 
stance, thereby  "burning  its  boats"  and  taking  securities 
against  a  backward  step.  From  early  rising  to  moral  or 
religious  conversion,  this  second  point  is  more  important  even 
than  the  first.  The  most  glowing  feeling,  the  most  powerful 
desire,  even  the  most  energetic  resolve  have  often  enough 
found  reason  to  welcome  as  needed  ally  this  sheer  difficulty 
of  turning  back.  Hence  the  public  pledge,  the  secret  vow, 
the  withdrawal  from  the  world,  the  rupture  of  ties,  and  all  the 
manifold  devices  for  discounting  infirmity  of  purpose  by  ren- 
dering return  upon  our  steps  a  practical  impossibility. 

A  fourth  maxim  is  "  never  if  possible  to  lose  a  battle." l 
And  none  can  be  sounder.     For  it  is  always  to 
" never    be  remembered  that  a  single  lapse  involves  here 
if  possible  to        something  worse   than   a   simple   failure.     The 

lose  a  battle." 

alternative  is  not  between  good  habit  or  no 
habit,  but  between  good  habit  and  bad.  For,  as  Professor 
Bain  points  out,  the  characteristic  difficulty  here  lies  in  the 
fact  that  in  the  moral  life  rival  tendencies  are  in  constant 
competition  for  mastery  over  us.  The  loss  of  a  battle  here  is 
therefore  worse  than  a  defeat.  It  strengthens  the  enemy, 
whether  this  enemy  be  some  powerful  passion,  or  nothing 
more  than  the  allurements  of  an  easy  life.  It  has  worse  effects 
still.  For  if  by  persistence  in  well-doing  we  all  of  us  create  a 
moral  tradition  for  our  individual  selves,  so  do  we  by  every 

!Bain,   Emotions  and  Will,  "The  Will,"  c.  ix.     Cf.  James'  com- 
ments, Principles  of  Psychology,  I.  p.  123. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  63 

failure  hang  in  the  memory  a  humiliating  and  paralysing  record 
of  defeat. 

To  these  maxims  Professor  James  would  have  us  add  the 
somewhat  ascetic  counsel  "  to  keep  the  faculty         pr0fessor 
of  effort  alive  in  us  by  a  little  gratuitous  exercise  James'  ascetic 
every  day."     That  is,  as  he  explains,  "  do  every  c 
day  or  two  something  for  no  other  reason  than  that  you  would 
rather  not  do  it,  so  that  when  the  hour  of  dire  need  draws 
nigh,  it  may  find  you  not  unnerved  and  untrained  to  stand  the 
test." l     It  is  advice  which  may  not  come  amiss  to  those  whose 
lot  is  cast  in  circumstances  where  there  may  be  going  on,  all 
unmarked,  the  slow  sap  of  an  easy  and  leisured  life.     The  rest 
of  the  world  may  perhaps  be  excused  from  acting  up  to  it,  till 
they  have  done  justice  to  the  opportunities  for  acting  against 
the  grain  which  experience  provides  with  an  embarrassing  and 
never-failing  bounty. 

It  is  hardly  needful,  in  conclusion,  to  descant  upon  the 
stability  of  life  to  which  the  observance  of  such  maxims  as 
these  will  seldom  fail  to  lead.  The  lives  of  nations  furnish 
endless  proof  how  customs  and  ceremonies  may  come  to  enjoy 
an  almost  consecrated  life,  even  in  face  of  all  the  solvents  of 
rationalising  theory  and  criticism.  It  is  not  otherwise  with  the 
lives  of  individuals.  "  It  is  not  possible,"  says  Aristotle,  "  at 
least  it  is  not  easy  to  overthrow  by  theories  what  has  been 
from  of  old  engrained  in  the  character."2 

It  is  time  however  to  turn  the  other  side  of  the  shield,  and 
to  read  there  that  Habit  has  its  perversions  and 

.^    ,.     .x   t.  Habit  has  its 

Its  limitations.  perversions 

i.   In  the  first  place  it  is  a  double-edged  and  limita- 
tions, 
instrument.     For  the  reasons  given,  it  can  make 

virtue  secure ;  but  it  may  take  the  wrong  side,  thereby  making 
vice  incurable.     Every  reader  of  Aristotle  must 
remember  that  upon  his  view  there  is  a  class  of 
persons  who  have  made  themselves,  by  habitual 

1  Principles,  vol.  I.  p.  126.  a  Ethics t  Bk.  X.  ix.  5. 


64  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

profligacy,  morally  "incurable."1  And  though  there  are  those 
hopeful  enough  to  believe  that  the  word  incurable  ought  to  be 
expunged  from  the  vocabulary  of  morals,  even  they  must  admit 
that  what  is  sometimes  called  a  moral  "  conversion  "  is,  by  law 
of  habit,  but  the  beginning  of  the  long  task  that  has  to  lay 
stone  to  stone  in  the  rebuilding  of  a  dismantled  life. 

A  second  possibility  —  need  the  familiar  warning   be   re- 

peated? —  is   that   Habit    may   easily   end    by 

%efata?to        producing  the  rigid  and  wooden  type  that  is 

"the  habit  of        unequal  to  the  demands  of  life.     Life  of  course 

onheteif"atinff       brings   its  changes,  and  the  day  comes  when 

experience  presents  new  situations.  It  may  be 
when  a  boy  leaves  home  for  school,  or  school  for  college,  or 
goes  out  into  the  world,  or  it  v  may  be  simply  one  or  other  of 
the  hundred  lesser  variations  of  which  even  a  monotonous  lot 
has  its  share.  The  pathetic  fact  is  that  often  enough,  just  in 
proportion  as  he  has  been  trained  up  not  wisely  but  too  well 
in  the  habits  of  a  sequestered  home,  the  model  youth  may 
lamentably  fail.2  Nor  will  he  ever  be  equal  to  the  demands  of 
an  environment  that  changes  even  in  repeating  itself,  till  among 
his  habits  he  can  number  "the  habit"  —  if  it  be  not  a  contra- 
diction so  to  call  it  —  "  of  constantly  rehabituating  himself."  3 
This  holds  not  only  of  the  passage  from  old  virtues  to  new. 
It  holds  within  the  sphere  of  every  single  virtue.  It  is  not 
courage,  for  example,  to  be  habituated  to  face,  however  sted- 
fastly,  only  a  given  kind  of  danger.  At  best  this  is  a  wooden 
Courage,  compatible  with  lamentable  failure  in  the  hour  of 
emergency.  Genuine  Courage  must  include  the  flexibility  that 
turns  and  adapts  itself  to  novel  circumstance. 
3.  it  may  It  is  easy  to  pass  from  these  considera- 

tions    to    the   further    possibility    that    Habit, 


1  Ethics,  Bk.  vii.  vii.  2. 

2  Cf.  the  suggestive  passage  in  Plato,  Republic,  Bk.  X.  619  c,  where 
the  weakness  of  the  virtue  of  "  habit  without  philosophy  "  is  exposed. 

8  Cf.  Guyau,  Education  and  Heredity,  p.  50. 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  65 

uncorrected  by  the  "habit  of  rehabituation, "  may  blunt  the 
sensibilities  and  blind  the  intelligence. 

In  a  sense  it  is  not  to  be  lamented  that  Habit  blunts  the 
sensibilities.  It  was  said  of  a  great  surgeon  that  with  him  pity 
as  an  emotion  had  to  cease  in  order  that  pity  as  a  motive 
might  begin.  And  we  may  generalise  the  remark  to  the  full 
length  of  the  statement  that  few  of  our  duties  but  would  suffer, 
if  we  tried  to  live  from  day  to  day  in  full  emotional  conscious- 
ness of  all  that  they  involve.  Not  that  we  have  become 
automata,  as  indeed  we  know  when  the  inhibition  of  habitual 
duties  shews  that  latent  feeling  still  burns;  but  simply  that  in 
order  to  get  work  done,  it  is  needful  to  secure  some  measure  of 
calm  in  the  soul. 

But  there  is  another  side, 

"  It  is  to  spend  long  days 
And  not  once  feel  that  we  were  ever  young," 

not  to  feel  it,  because  we  have  become  case-hardened.     It  is 
here  that  Butler's  analysis  is  so  substantially  sound.1     When 
impressions  issue  in  action,  he  says,  our  aptitudes  for  acting  are 
increased :  when  impressions  are  passive,  that  is,  do  not  issue 
in  action,  they  gradually  issue  in  insensibility.     This,  to  be 
sure,  has  been  questioned.     Granting  that  the  indulgence  of 
these  sentimental  passive  impressions  weakens  the  practical 
tendencies,  they  do  not,  so  runs  the  criticism,2  diminish  the 
susceptibility  to  the  sentimental  pleasure.     But  is  it  the  fact 
that  sentimental  pity,  for  example,  softens  the      The  nemesj 
heart  even  to  sentimental  pity?     Does  it  not  ofsentimen- 
rather  wear  itself  out,  till  it  passes  into  the  tahty< 
apathetic  end,  not  to  be  disguised  though  it  may  still  repeat, 
from  the  lips  outwards,  the  over- worn  sentimental  phrases;  if 
indeed  it  do  not  throw  off  all  disguise,  and  pass  into  the  sneer 

1  Butler's  Analogy,  Part  I.  c.  v. 

2  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  p.  458  (3rd  ed.). 


66  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

of  the  cynic?  It  is  thus  that  habitual  indulgence  in  sensibility 
issues  in  insensibility. 

The  same  result  may  happen  in  the  case  of  every  habit. 
Acts  done  at  first  with  a  beating  heart  or  a  moistened  eye,  may 
come  to  be  done  without  the  stirring  of  a  pulse;  and  this  not 
because  feeling  is  latent  but  because  it  is  as  good  as  dead. 
Hence  not  unnaturally  Feeling  and  Habit  have  been  set  in 
antagonism,  and  Habit  branded  as  a  kind  of  death  in  life.1 

It  is  of  even  more  serious  moment  that  the  acquired  facility 
to  act  in  familiar  ways,  which  ought  to  leave  the 
further!  wind  mind  free  to  deal  with  unfamiliar  difficulties, 
theinteiii-  may  easily  beget  the  indolent  habit  of  acting 

without  thinking  at  all.  No  result  could  be 
more  fatal.  Moral  action,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten,  is  by  its 
very  nature  immersed  in  circumstance.  There  are  conditions 
of  time  and  place,  of  manner  and  aim.  And  these  are  so  far 
from  being  fixed  once  for  all  that,  in  the  changeful  scene  of 
human  activity,  they  vary  endlessly  with  the  man  and  the 
occasion.  Hence  the  need  for  that  perpetual  rehabituation 
without  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Habit  will  degenerate  into  a 
stupid  automatism.  But  such  rehabituation  will  never  come 
where  there  is  not  the  wakeful,  alert  intelligence  that  is  quick 
to  read  the  changeful  face  of  circumstance,  and  to  note  the 
peculiar  requirements  of  the  particular  emergency.  This  is 
importance  w^at  Aristotle  saw  so  clearly.  No  one  has 
of  uniting  good  insisted  more  emphatically  that  the  moral  in- 
determinateness  of  natural  desires  must  be 
superseded  by  habits :  and  no  one  has  seen  with  more  unerring 
perspicacity  that  this  is  never  enough.  The  habits  he  magni- 
fies are  in  truth  not  genuine  virtues  at  all  unless,  as  "habits  of 
deliberate  choice,"  they  carry  in  them  the  resourceful  vitality 

1  Cf.  Wordsworth,  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality  : 

"  Full  soon  thy  soul  shall  have  her  earthly  freight, 
And  custom  lie  upon  her  with  a  weight, 
Heavy  as  frost,  and  deep  almost  as  life !  " 


Habit  and  its  Limitations  67 

that  can  meet  and  adapt   itself  to  new  situations.     For  it  is 

not  the  crowning  merit  of  Aristotle  to  have  seen 

that  virtue  is  habit.     This  is  perhaps  the  lesser  ?n"*htened 

...  _,  .  judgment. 

part  of  his  message.  More  pregnant  far  is 
his  doctrine  that,  in  any  fully  developed  character,  Habit  must 
be  found  side  by  side  with  a  sound  practical  judgment.  For 
though  of  course  there  is  a  long  probation  during  which  our 
actions  are  chosen  for  us  by  those  who  are  wiser  than  ourselves, 
this  cannot  go  on  for  ever.  The  time  comes  when  the  in- 
dividual must  face  his  own  problems  and  find  his  own  solutions, 
and  this  he  will  never  do,  unless  to  the  habits  that  run  in  the 
ruts  of  use  and  wont  he  have  added  that  sagacity,  shrewdness, 
practical  wisdom,  sound  judgment  (call  it  what  we  may)  which 
is  nothing  less  than  the  crowning  virtue  of  a  good  character1. 

It  follows  that  the  man  of  habits,  however  excellent  these 
be,  may  still  be  far  enough  from  being  what  can 
be   fitly  called   a   man  of  character.     In   two   habit's  Tnd  the 
respects  especially  he  may  fall  short.     His  habits,  ™an  of  charac- 
severally  good,  may  lack  the  organic  unity  and 
the  just  relative  proportion  which  are  among  the  touchstones 
of  character.     It  is  not  enough  to  give  the  young  good  habits  : 
the  habits  must  be  co-ordinated  in  view  of  the  functions  which 
the  man  has  to  fulfil  in  the  social  economy,  and  built  into  a 
character  that  is  permeated  by  the  unity  of  coherent   plan  and 
purpose.     And,  as  a  second  shortcoming,  the  man  of  habits 
may  still   be  without   that   practised  good   judgment,  in  the 
absence  of  which  no  one  need  hope  either  to  face  successfully 
the  complex  changefulness  of  life's  problems,  or  even  to  carry 
to  their  full  development  the  habits  that  have  been  given  him 
in  the  days  of  his  tutelage. 

Thus  there  are  three  main  requirements  to  be  satisfied 
before  moral  character  can  come  to  its  full  maturity.  The  first 
is  good  habits  rooted  in  strong  and  promising  instincts :  the 

1  Hence  the  importance  of  reading  Bk  n.  of  the  Ethics  in  close  con- 
nection with  Bk  vi. 


68  Habit  and  its  Limitations 

second,   that  co-ordination  of  habits  that   fits  the   man  for 

his  life's  work :  the  third,  the  sound  judgment 

requisites  of         which  enables  its  possessor,  when  the  days  of 

a&ood  leading   strings   are  at  an  end.  to  stand   alone 

character. 

and  confront  the  world  in  his  own  independent 
strength. 

It  will  be  our  task  in  the  sequel  to  see  how  these  require- 
ments can  be  satisfied.  And  the  first  step  in  this  direction 
will  be  to  pass  in  brief  review  before  us  the  leading  influences, 
natural  and  social,  under  which  congenital  endowment  finds  its 
discipline  and  nurture. 


PART   II 

EDUCATIVE    INFLUENCES 

CHAPTER   I 

ENVIRONMENT 

IT  is  an  impossible  task   to  discriminate  sharply  between 
what  is  congenital  and  what  is  due  to  environ- 

The  penetra- 

ment.     Environment  begins  to  operate  with  the  ting  influence 
beginnings  of  life,  nor  does  it  cease  to  operate, 
not  for  an  instant,  as  the  days  become  months 
and  the  months  years. 

"  Our  bodies  feel  where'er  they  be 
Against  or  with  our  will." 

So  do  our  souls.  And,  this  being  so,  it  is  inevitable  that, 
though  we  watch  never  so  narrowly,  many  an  effect  upon  soul 
as  upon  body  will  be  wrought  unobserved.  Even  the  keenest- 
eyed  and  most  vigilant  of  parents  must  never  flatter  himself 
that  he  knows  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  is  happening  to  his  boy. 
We  can  see  this  sometimes  in  the  fate  of  "  experiments  "  in 
education.  Really,  such  ventures  are  not  experiments  at  all : 
the  distinctive  requirement  of  experiment — the  thorough  know- 
ledge and  control  of  the  conditions  operating — is  not  satisfied. 
For,  as  the  influence  of  environment  is  ceaseless  and  the 
opportunities  of  observation  intermittent,  the  results  that 
happen  are  not  the  results  expected.  Nor  need  we  wonder  if 

69 


70  Environment 

the  experiment  so-called  often  enough  in  its  upshot  astonishes 
none  more  than  the  experimenter. 

Hence  the  risk,  to  which  recent  physiological  and  psycho- 
logical analysis  has  done  much  to  open  our  eyes,  of  rashly 
setting  down  as  congenital  much  that  is  really  due  to  the  silent 
and  secret  action  of  external  circumstance.  When,  for  example, 
a  boy  exhibits  what  seems  an  inborn  aptitude  for  his  father's 
trade,  or  reproduces  with  precocious  fidelity  the  traits  of  his 
father's  temper,  these  things  need  not  be  ascribed  to  the 
hand  of  Nature.  Capacity  and  the  response  to  stimulus  that 
capacity  implies,  this  of  course  must  at  very  least  be  there. 
But  this  much  given,  the  rest  may  well  be  due  to  the  simple 
fact  that  the  boy  has  first  seen  the  light  in  a  home  upon  which 
paternal  trade  or  temper  has  set  its  mark.  A  late  master  of 
Balliol  used  to  make  merry  over  certain  contemporaries  who 
saw  Heredity  in  the  fact  that  the  sons  of  deans  themselves 
became  deans,  there  being  of  course  other,  less  occult,  reasons 
why  sons  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  their  fathers. 

Foremost  among  these  is  the  fact  that  the  experience  and 
the  achievement  of  the  elder  generation  store 

«  Social 

heredity"  themselves  up  in  the  environment.     They  leave 

'owerfui  in-  ^^  imPress  upon  the  habitual  pursuits  and 
fluence  from  atmosphere  of  the  home,  upon  its  ideal  of  duty 
and  its  ideal  of  pleasure,  upon  its  choice  of 
friends  and  its  standard  of  living  •  and  thereby  come  to  act 
with  masterful  effect  upon  the  young  soul  which  lives  and 
moves  and  has  its  being  in  their  presence.  It  is  thus  that 
family  tradition  is  carried  on,  it  may  be  for  generations.  There 
is  of  course  a  given  temperament,  capacity,  and  proclivity  to 
work  upon.  Yet  these,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  are  modes 
of  endowment  which  do  not,  which  in  truth  cannot,  exist, 
where  there  is  not  already  an  environment  under  whose 
influence  they  are,  from  the  very  dawn  of  life,  undergoing 
modification.  This  is  especially  true  of  those  deferred  in- 
stincts which  postpone  their  appearance  till  later  years.  They 


Environment  71 

are  not  to  be  regarded  as  acquisitions.  But  neither  can  we 
doubt  that  the  manner  and  energy  of  their  appearance,  when 
the  day  for  that  comes,  must  be  influenced  by  the  action 
and  reaction  between  organism  and  environment  which  has 
been  going  on  in  the  years  before  they  found  expression. 
What  happens  here  conspicuously,  happens  in  less  degree  in 
the  instincts  and  capacities  that  are  not  "  deferred."  Bare 
instinct,  mere  capacity,  are  things  unknown,  creatures  of 
analysis.  The  actual  fact  is  always  proclivity  and  environment 
in  living  relation  one  to  the  other.  The  point  is  practical. 
When  the  child  reproduces  the  parent,  and  especially  when  he 
does  so  with  a  baleful  fidelity  to  what  is  bad,  it  is  only  too  easy 
to  lay  the  blame  on  "  original  sin."  But  the  damnosa  hereditas 
is  not  always,  perhaps  it  is  never  wholly,  the  gift  of  Nature. 
It  comes  from  the  remediable  defect  of  the  slipshod  home,  the 
barren  or  vicious  example,  the  sour  pasture  of  a  miserable  lot. 
No  one  nowadays  will  say  that  circumstance  is  everything. 
Are  figs  of  thistles  or  flowers  of  thorns?  But 

The  recog- 

circumstance — "social   heredity"  as  some  have   nised influence 
called  it,  "  tradition  "  as  others  have  it— this  is   hereSty^is 
there  from  the  first.     And  every  discovery  that   a  ground  for 
analysis  makes  as  to  the  extraordinary  secretness 
and  subtlety  of  its  action  must  feed  the  hopes  and  nerve  the 
efforts  of  all,  and  especially  of  parents,  with  whom  it  rests  to 
make  it  or  to  mar  it. 

Similarly  when  the  passivity  of  early  years  has  been  left 
behind  and  character  has  entered  on  its  long  life- 
history.     For  character  and  environment  are  not  increases*  as7 
to  be  set  in  antithesis,  as  if  a  developed  character  character 

i  •  i        •    n  r     i        developes. 

became  less  receptive  to  the  influences  of  the 
world  of  men  and  things.  It  is  quite  otherwise.  For  however 
rich  a  man  may  be  in  those  inward  resources  which  raise  him 
above  the  changes  and  chances  of  life,  the  greatest  of  all  these 
resources  is  that  he  has  learnt  the  secret  of  opening  his  heart 
and  mind  to  the  plenitude  of  what  the  natural,  and  social,  and 


72  Environment 

spiritual  environment  has  in  its  gift.  It  is  not  childhood,  in 
its  narrow  passivity,  but  manhood  in  its  enlarged  experience, 
that  realises  the  magnitude  of  the  forces  amongst  which  it 
moves. 

It  is  just  this,  indeed,  that  has  opened  up  to  Education  a 

Hence  Edu-       wider  scope  and  a  larger  ambition.     For   the 

cation,  in  its         educators  of  our  race  no  longer  limit  themselves 

wider  aspects,  ...  . 

includes  social  to  that  direct  influence  of  mind  on  mind  and 
organisation.  character  on  character  which  is  their  more  imme- 
diate concern.  They  have  not  read  Plato  and  Aristotle  in  vain. 
Convinced,  as  these  conscript  fathers  of  education  were  con- 
vinced, that  character  will  never  reach  its  full  stature  unless  it 
has  found  a  favouring  environment,  they  are  coming  to  realise 
the  extent  of  the  task  that  lies  before  them — the  task  of 
organising,  and  if  need  be  of  reforming,  the  social  system,  so 
that  each  new  life  may  pass  under  the  beneficent,  constraining 
hand  of  those  institutions,  from  Family  on  to  State  and  Church, 
whose  influences  are  co-extensive  with  the  whole  of  life.  The 
work  of  Education,  in  the  large  sense  of  the  word,  is  but  half- 
done  unless  each  new  comer  finds  welcome  from  an  environ- 
ment prepared  throughout  for  his  reception.  For  Family  and 
School  are  but  the  first  forms  of  that  larger  hearth  to  which, 
cold  and  indifferent  though  it  often  seems,  the  human  spirit 
must  always  look  for  warmth  and  nurture. 


Bodily  Health  73 


CHAPTER  II 
BODILY   HEALTH 

THE  influences  of  Nature  and  of  Society  are  inextricably 
interwoven  in  their  action  upon  the  members  of 
a  civilised  community.     The  difficulties  of  sharp   social  in- 
cleavage  meet  us  (as  we  shall  see)  if  we  try,  with   f^"*^ 
Spencer,  to  part  the  reactions  which  are  natural 
from   those   that   are   human  and   social.     Nor   is   it   to  the 
barbarian  but  to  the  civilised  social  man,  who  has  drank  deep 
of  the  spirit  of  poetry,  romance  or  art,  that  the  Nature  of  the 
nature-worshippers  reveals  the  magic  of  her  mystic  messages. 
But  as  usage  has  long  set  its  seal  on  the  distinction,  it  may 
be  permissible,  for  exposition's  sake,  to  follow  it. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  attempt  to  do  justice  to  all  the 
great  natural  influences  which  act  upon  tempera-  Many  natural 
ment,  instinct,  and  habit.  Climate,  for  example,  influences  are 

'    beyond  the 

and  geographical  conditions,  the  succession,  the   scope  of  our 
rigour,  the  mildness  of  the  seasons,  the  relative  en<iuiry- 
length  of  day  and  night — these  all  profoundly  modify  man's 
life  and  development.     But,  for  the  most  part,  we  must  take 
them  as  we  find  them.     They  are  not  within  control  and,  in  a 
practical  enquiry  like  the  present,  it  is  enough  to  bear  in  mind 
that  such  influences  operate ;  and  to  pass  on 1. 

1  For  fuller  treatment  of  these  cf.  Lotze,  Mikrocosmus,  Bk  vi,  c.  ii. 


74  Bodily  Health 

It  is  very  different  however  when  we  turn  to  the  conditions 
of  bodily  health.  Hygiene  and  therapeutics 
prove  them  to  be  emphatically  within  control, 


conditioned  by      indeed  they  are  so  generally  considered  to  be  so 

bodily  health.  ..       *       ..     . 

that  persons  not  a  few  live  for  little  else.  As  to 
the  manner  and  limits  of  such  control,  it  is  for  writers  upon 
Hygiene  to  speak.  It  must  suffice  here,  touching  but  cursorily 
on  a  large  subject,  to  specify  some  general  aspects  in  which 
moral  development  is  conspicuously  conditioned  by  physical 
health. 

(i)    This  is  so,  in  its  most  obvious  aspect,  because  good 

For  *xj  health  is  a  prime  condition  of  practical  energy. 

Health  is  a  For  energetic  constitutions  enjoy  an  advantage 

condition  of  ,     A  f      ,  j   .1  i_  -T, 

practical  that  goes  far  beyond  the  mere  superior  ability  to 

energy.  do  wnat  others  cannot.     This  may  give  them  their 

political  or  economic  value.  But,  ethically,  the  gain  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  by  energetic  action  that  men  make  themselves. 
They  do  this  when  by  their  actions  they  form  the  corresponding 
habits  :  but  they  do  it  even  more  because  it  is  substantially 
through  action  far  more  than  through  instruction  that  they 
come  to  identify  their  lives  with  diverse  social  ends  and 
interests.  Thus  Spinoza's  almost  fierce  denunciation  of  ascetic 
contempt  for  the  body  turns  upon  the  conviction  that  the  well- 
nurtured  body  is  the  organ  of  all  true  develop- 
ment,  because  it  brings  its  possessor  into  varied 


tact  with  practical  relations  with  experience.     On  his  view 

experience. 

to  macerate  the  body  is  thus  to  starve  the  soul1. 
Hence  too  the  wisdom  of  the  Carlylian  dictum  that,  if  any  man 
would  ever  know  "  that  poor  Self  of  his,"  the  first  step  is  to 
find  his  work  and  to  do  it.  Otherwise  he  will  never  realise  a 
self  that  is  worth  the  knowing. 

So,   conversely,   with  lack  of  energy.     Idleness,  says  pro- 
verbial wisdom,  comes  to  want.     But  its  worst  want  is  not  the 

1  Ethics,   Part    IV.    Prop.    XLV.    Scholium,   with  which   cf.   xxxvm. 
and   xxxix. 


Bodily  Health  75 

empty  purse  :  it  is  the  soul  atrophied  for  lack  of  the  spiritual 

wages  that  never  fail  the  strenuous  life.     What 

holds   of  idleness   holds   likewise    of    physical  ^'StaST*! 

languor  and  weakness.      We  may  not  impute 

these  as  a  sin,  thereby  "beating   the   cripple  with   his   own 

crutches  "  ;   yet  we  must  just  as  little  refuse  to  face  the  fact 

that  a  weak  or  sickly  body  is  a  grievous  moral  disability,  in  so 

far  as  by  narrowing  the  range  of  contact  with  life  it  stunts  the 

character. 

(2)  Similarly  when  we  turn  to  moral  endurance.      Thus, 
when  some  trial  falls  upon  anyone  we  love,  one      (2)  Health 


of  the  best  things  to  wish  for  him  is  good  health  eives 

,     .  .       5         P  tunity  for  the 

and  well-strung  nerves.     And  this,  not  for  the  virtues  of 
obvious  reason  that  he  will  then  not  break  down  endurance- 
in  health,  nor  yet  for  the  less  materialistic  reason  that  he  can 
always  find  a  manly  anodyne  in  intense  and  absorbing  physical 
exertion,  but  for  the  better  reason  still  that  physical  strength 
minimises  the  risk,  never  absent  when  the  wheels  of  vital  being 
run  slow,  that  trial  and  shock  may  cut  short  the  life,  even  of  a 
brave  spirit,  before  the  virtues  of  endurance  have  had  time  for 
their   maturing.      Hence   the   folly  of  indulging   the   natural 
recklessness  of  bodily  health  in   the  dark  days  of  trial.     Well 
has  Rousseau  said  that  the  weaker  the  body  is      The  we&]£ 
the  more  it  commands.     It  commands  in  the  body  com- 
hour  when  we  cannot  face  our  willing  work,  or   r 
when  we  wince  like  cowards  under  demands  that  shake  the 
unstrung  nerves,  or  when  it  makes  us,  in  spite  of  resolutions, 
morbid,  irritable,  wrong-headed  in  our  estimates  of  men  and 
things.      And,  as  the  same  counsellor  adds,  it  is  the   strong 
body  that  obeys.      For  the  body  will  be  best 
subjugated,  not  by  hair-shirt  or  scourge  or  any 
other  of  the  like  devices  which  too  often  thrust 
the  physical  life  into  prominence  in  the  very  effort  to  repress  it, 
but  by  enlisting  the  fulness  of  manly  strength  in  the  service  of 
some   cause  or   person,  which  will   tax   it   to   the  uttermost. 


76  Bodily  Health 


Hence  the  strength  of  the  ethical  argument  for  physical  educa- 
tion.    If  we  are  apt  to  have  misgivings  about 

Ethical  ,  .       ,        .          , 

argument  for  the  long  hours  and  days  given  in  boyhood  and 
physical  youth  to  the  strenuous  idleness  of  sports  and 

education. 

games,  we  must  not  think  too  exclusively  of  the 
immediate  results.  We  must  think  of  the  heavy  drafts  which 
arduous  vocations  make  in  after  years  on  bodily  vigor  and 
endurance,  of  the  habitual  cheerfulness  that  follows  health,  and 
not  least  of  that  sense  of  insurance  against  whatever  the  future 
can  bring  which  comes  of  the  consciousness  of  calculable 
physical  fitness.  Plato  startles  us  in  his  educational  ideal  by 
assigning  two  and  a  half  of  the  most  precious  years  of  life  to 
the  exclusive  pursuit  of  "gymnastics1."  If  it  seem  a  costly 
tribute  to  the  body,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  is 
prompted  by  the  principle  "  Body  for  the  sake  of  Soul,"  and 
finds  its  justification  in  the  strenuous  service  to  be  exacted  by 
the  State  of  its  citizens  in  later  years. 

(3)  Add   to    this    that   bodily  health  is  also  a  condition 

of  all  soundness  of  practical  judgment.      The 
(3)  Health  is      best  of  health  will  not  of  course  ensure  wisdom. 

a  condition  of 

sound  judgment.   Not  all  wise  men  are  robust,  nor  are  all  robust 
men  wise.     Yet  the  connection  is  intimate. 

"  Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health, 
Truth  breathed  by  cheerfulness," 

says  Wordsworth 2,  in  a  familiar  couplet  whose  full  significance 
is  perhaps  not  always  understood.  For  though  health  and 
cheerfulness  may  not  bring  wisdom,  they  afford  securities  against 
unwisdom  in  some  of  its  most  familiar  forms.  For  our  errors  of 
judgment,  as  may  be  more  evident  in  the  sequel3,  are  not  due 
merely,  or  even  mainly,  to  positive  blindness  to  the  conditions 

1  Between  1 7  and  20  —  just  the  time  most  valuable  for  forming  intel- 
lectual tastes  and  habits.     Cf.  Republic. 

2  The  Tables  Turned. 
8  Cf.  pp.  164  and  206. 


Btfdily  Health  77 

involved.  They  come  rather  from  a  distorted  emphasis,  a 
false  perspective  in  regard  to  conditions  that  are  well  within 
our  horizon.  We  realise  this  when  we  come  to  ourselves. 
"How could  I  have  thought  it?  How  could  I  have  said  it?" — 
this  is  what  we  say  when  we  regain  our  balance — that  balance 
that  is  so  hopelessly  upset  when  our  nerves  are  shaken,  and 
our  sensibilities  morbid.  For,  by  subtle  organic  influence,  the 
morbid  state  of  body  dulls  a  susceptibility  here,  and  exaggerates 
a  susceptibility  there,  till  we  lose,  and  often  know  we  lose,  the 
power  of  seeing  things  as  they  really  are,  and  as  they  come  to 
be  seen  by  ourselves  when  health  returns.  Nor  can  it  be 
denied  that,  even  the  salt  of  the  earth  may  thus  on  occasion  be 
betrayed,  by  nothing  more  dignified  than  physical  exhaustion 
or  irritability,  into  judgments  peevish,  uncharitable,  precipitate ; 
and  thereby  put  to  the  blush  by  their  worldly  neighbours  in 
whom  the  placid  good  health  that  goes  with  an  easy-going  life 
has  kept  the  balance  true. 

Hence  the  futility  of  attempting  to  argue  a  victim  of  Hypo- 
chondria into  a  healthy  view  of  life.     He  may 
listen  to  us  and,  after  a  fashion,  understand  us.   dria3is°not°to 
For  our  words  are  his  words.     But  the  facts  as  be  argued 

with. 

they  image  themselves   in  our   minds  are   not 
the  facts  as  imaged  in  his. 

"Alas,  the  warped  and  broken  board 
How  can  it  bear  the  painter's  dye, 
The  harp  of  strained  and  tuneless  chord 
How  to  the  minstrel's  skill  reply1?" 

This  is  the  gravest  injury  that  weak  or  shattered  nerves  can 
inflict  upon  us.  Pain,  exhaustion,  even  forced  inactivity,  are 
lesser  evils.  For  this  clouding  of  the  judgment  troubles  what, 
in  adult  years,  is  the  very  well-head  of  moral  action.  Sometimes, 

1  The  lines  are  the  more  impressive  as  coming  from  Sir  Walter,  who 
was  little  given  to  the  putting  on  of  sadness  for  the  pleasure  of  it. 


78  Bodily  Health 

no  doubt,  there  are  compensations  here.  Persons  of  weak 
health  are  often  anxious,  and  anxiety  begets  foresight;  and 
thus,  by  habitual  foresight,  they  may  safeguard  themselves 
against  mistakes.  Yet  this  is  at  best  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
even-balanced  healthy  outlook  that  goes  so  far  to  keep  the 
judgment  sound.  Better  to  render  such  compensations  un- 
necessary by  setting  to  work  betimes  to  secure  the  healthy 
body,  remembering  that,  in  all  treatment  of  a  composite  being 
like  man,  the  most  powerful  moralising  influences  are  not 
always  those  that  are  directly  moral. 

Yet  we  must  not  press  these  truths  unduly.     Though  Dr 
Johnson  once  declared  that  illness  makes  a  man 

On  the  other        J  .  ,  ,         .,,  i  •     -i       -i 

hand,  bodily  a  scoundrel,  the  retort  is  that  illness,  and  indeed 
may^r  a^  DOCUly  weakness,  may  become  strength  when 

spiritual  seized  as  a  spiritual  opportunity.     There  have 

been  men — Erasmus,  Montaigne,  Heine — who, 
with  a  levity  more  touching  than  fortitude,  made  humorous 
capital  out  of  their  own  diseases  and  sufferings,  in  a  fashion 
which  puts  the  Johnsonian  dictum  to  confusion.  Nor  could 
mankind,  in  presence  of  all  the  slings  and  arrows  of  disease 
and  decay,  afford  to  surrender  even  one  of  those  consolations 
which  have  taught  physical  weakness  the  secret  of  moral 
strength.  Physical  suffering  can  beget  its  own  virtues,  of  which 
fortitude  is  one.  A  weak  body  is,  sometimes  at  any  rate,  the 
condition  of  a  deeper  and  a  more  refined  moral  insight ;  and 
though  long-continued  delicacy  of  constitution  is  only  too  prone 
to  the  pitfall  of  a  valetudinarianism  that  is  fatally  self-centred, 
it  may  sometimes  induce  a  discerning  sympathy  with  the 
sorrows  of  others  which  robust  and  bustling  persons  do  not 
always  feel. 

Yet  when  all  is  said  such  things  are  still  of  the  nature  of 
compensations.  They  do  not  touch  the  central  fact  that  he  who 
would  form  a  well-developed  character  must  stand  far  aloof 
from  the  ascetic  superstition,  rooted  in  a  false  psychology,  that 
the  death  of  Body  is  the  life  of  Soul. 


Bodily  Health  79 

There   is   no   materialism   in   this.     It   is   the   reverse  of 
materialism  to  believe  that  the  moral  life  is  not      Attention 


so  resourceless  as  to  be  unable  to  find  sufficiently  to 

.  -ITT      i  education  is 

high  service  for  the  body  at  its  best.  We  have  the  reverse  of 
already  glanced  at  Spinoza's  pregnant  remark  materialism. 
that  we  do  not  know  what  the  Body  is  capable  of1.  We  may 
now  go  a  step  further  and,  following  Aristotle,  declare  that  we 
shall  never  know,  till  Body  is  recognised  in  its  true  significance 
as  instrument  of  fully  developed  Soul.  For  materialism  con- 
sists, not  in  frankest  recognition  of  matter,  but  in  the  assign- 
ment to  it  of  a  spurious  supremacy  or  independence.  There 
can  be  no  materialism  in  utmost  emphasis  upon  physical 
education,  so  long  as  "  Body  for  the  sake  of  Soul  "  is,  as  it  was 
with  Plato,  the  presiding  principle  of  educational  action. 

^Ethics,  Part  III.    Prop.  n.  Scholium,  "For  what  the  Body  can  do 
no  one  has  hitherto  determined." 


8o      Mr  Spencers  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions 


CHAPTER   III 

MR   SPENCER'S   DOCTRINE   OF   NATURAL  REACTIONS 

IT  is  beyond  dispute  good  that  the  young  should  learn  by 
The  effi-  personal  experience  how  the  things  and  persons 

oacy  of  natu-  they  encounter  may  be  expected  to  behave  to- 
must  be  recog-  wards  them.  Much  education  must,  whether 
nised-  we  will  or  not,  remain  of  this  kind.  Children 

cannot  be  "followed,  hourly  watched,  and  noosed1."  In  all 
early  life,  in  life  altogether,  we  struggle  forwards  more  or  less 
blindly.  We  leap  before  we  look.  And  if  we  learn  to  do 
otherwise,  it  is  in  large  measure  by  our  blunders,  and  the 
"  reactions  "  which  these  entail.  It  is  by  tears  that  the  first 
tiny  shoots  of  foresight,  deliberation  and  choice,  are  watered. 
As  Burns  has  it : 

"  Though  losses  and  crosses 
Be  lessons  right  severe, 
There's  wit  there  you'll  get  there 
You'll  find  no  other  where." 

The  gain  does  not  end  in  the  specific  experiences.  Gradually 
there  will  grow  up  the  prudential  habit  of  mind  which,  as 
years  go  on,  will  help  its  possessor  to  steer  his  course  in  life. 
And  all  along  will  come,  as  unsought  bonus,  an  intimate  and 
unforgettable  knowledge  about  the  properties  of  things  and 
beings  that  burn,  cut,  sting,  tear,  bruise,  bite,  kick,  strike  and 
so  forth. 

1  Cf.  Wordsworth,  Prelude,  Bk.  v.  238. 


Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions      8  1 

This   is  the  fact  which  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  urges  with 
uncommon  force  and  varied  illustration  in  his 
well-known  chapter  upon  "  moral  education  "  ;  * 


and  it  would  be  graceless  to  withhold  gratitude   views  on  moral 

education. 

for  the  service  he  has  therein  rendered.  The 
chapter  will  remain  a  protest  against  education  by  arbitrary 
penalties,  against  aimless  meddlesomeness,  against  the  cruelties 
of  Draconian  methods,  against  the  too  common  illusion  that 
nothing  is  needed  but  word  of  command,  or  diet  of  precept. 
And  if  we  may  regard  as  even  remotely  typical  the  parent, 
for  whose  existence  Mr  Spencer  vouches,  who  when  his  boy 
was  carried  home  with  a  dislocated  thigh  "  saluted  him  with 
a  castigation,"  it  might  even  earn  the  thanks  of  the  Society 
for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children. 

It  is  necessary,   however,  to   define   more   precisely  what 
this  doctrine   means.     Manifestly   enough  it  is 
perhaps,    the    most   uncompromising    plea   for 
"  natural  reactions  "  ever  written.     But  there  is  ficuitymdis- 
a  difficulty  in  understanding  exactly  when  it  is 


that  a  reaction  is  to  be  called  "natural."  Thus  |^tis0°nc8ial 
there  are  instances  adduced  in  which  children 
fall,  or  run  their  heads  against  tables,  or  lay  hold  of  the  fire- 
bars, or  spill  boiling  water  on  their  skins.  In  these,  the 
reactions  follow  without  any  human  intervention.  There  are 
other  instances  again  in  which  children  who  "make  hay" 
on  the  nursery  floor  suffer  by  having  to  restore  their  little 
chaos  to  order,  or  small  boys  who  tear  their  clothes  in  scram- 
bling through  a  hedge  incur  the  surely  formidable  penalty  of 
being  set  to  mend  them.  In  these  the  reactions  would  cer- 
tainly not  happen,  did  not  nature  find  instruments  in  nurses 
or  mothers.  Then  —  though  now  we  have  passed  to  "later 
life  "  —  we  read  of  the  idle  apprentice  discharged  into  poverty, 
the  unpunctual  man  who  proves  his  own  worst  enemy,  the 

1  Spencer,  Education^  c.  in.     All  the  quotations  from  Mr  Spencer  are 
from  this  chapter. 


82      Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions 

extortionate  tradesman  who  loses  his  custom,  the  inattentive 
doctor  who  destroys  his  practice.  Finally,  we  have  the  graver 
offences  —  lying,  for  example,  or  stealing  —  with  which  nature, 
apart  from  human  intervention,  is  so  incompetent  to  deal 
that  she  calls  to  her  assistance  two  allies,  the  first,  parental 
disapprobation,  the  second,  indemnity,  which,  says  Mr  Spencer, 
"in  the  case  of  a  child  may  be  effected  out  of  its  pocket 
money." 

Now  it  is  of  course  permissible  for  any  writer  to  call 
one  and  all  of  these  reactions  "  natural."  There 
*s  a  w^e  sense  *n  which  all  human  society  may 


Mr  spencer's  be  included  in  Nature.  It  was  so  regarded  by 
voivea*mial-  the  Greek  philosophers.  And  Burke  echoes 
mum  of  human  them,  speaking  to  the  pregnant  text,  "Art  is 

intervention. 

mans  nature.  M  If  this  view  were  adopted, 
natural  reactions  would  simply  be  such  as  conduct  would 
draw  down,  not  only  from  Nature  ordinarily  so-called,  but 
also  from  a  well-constituted  Social  System.  This  however 
is  not  the  doctrine  of  Mr  Spencer.  True  to  his  well-known 
laissez-faire  convictions,  he  would  have  us  minimise  human 
intervention  to  the  uttermost  possible  limit,  and  by  conse- 
quence welcome  reactions  as  "  natural  "  in  proportion  as 
they  verge  towards  "the  true  theory  and  practice  of  moral 
discipline  "  as  illustrated  by  the  burns,  scalds,  or  bruises 
which  the  external  world  never  fails  to  inflict  on  those  who 
violate  her  laws.  How  far  this  doctrine  is  sound  we  shall 
shortly  see.  The  present  point  is  that  it  is  certainly  not 
allowable  to  cite  in  support  of  it  the  ^actions  that  over- 
take the  slack  tradesman,  the  incapable  doctor,  the  idle 
apprentice,  or  even  the  small  boy  who  is  to  be  set  to  mend 
his  own  clothes.  All  these  involve  the  intervention  not 
merely  of  human  beings,  but  of  human  beings  instinct  with 
ideas  of  moral  desert  and  moral  discipline,  which  are  wholly 

1  Appeal  from  the  new  to  the  old  Whigs,  Works,  vol.  III.  p.  86. 


Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions      83 

absent  in  the   burns,  scalds,  and   bruises   which   Nature   ad- 
ministers. 

The  same  point  will  appear  if  we  examine  the  place  as- 
signed to  Disapprobation.     No  one  can  doubt 
that  it  may  have  immense  influence  :  no  one  is 


likely  to  quarrel  with  Mr  Spencer  for  invoking   bation  a  natu- 

.  rr  ^    ^     -^  i          ral  reaction? 

it  against  the  graver  offences.  But  its  value 
must  of  course  depend  upon  the  source  from  which  it  comes. 
The  disapprobation  of  the  parent  who  castigated  his  child 
for  dislocating  his  thigh  was  presumably  not  of  much  value. 
It  was  of  less  value  than  the  bite  of  a  dangerous  animal, 
What  more  evident  than  that  Disapprobation  can  carry  moral 
discipline,  only  when  it  has  behind  it  ideas  and  sentiments 
as  to  the  real  well-being  of  the  child  who  is  by  it  to  be  disci- 
plined. Mr  Spencer  sees  this.  He  urges  parents  to  aim  at 
such  reactions  as  "would  be  called  forth  from  a  parent  of 
perfect  nature."  This  is  excellent.  The  difficulty  is  to  recon- 
cile it  with  the  Spencerian  faith  in  Spencerian  "  nature."  To 
leave  our  boys  and  girls  to  nature's  teaching  is  one  thing  : 
to  consign  them  to  parents  so  fully  charged  with  moral  ideas 
as  to  be  even  on  the  way  to  perfection,  is  another.  For  this 
is  moral  education  as  the  other  is  not. 

It  is  moreover  far  from  clear  that  these  "  natural  reactions  " 
merit  the  overwhelming  confidence  reposed  in 
them  by  their  advocates.     Be  it   granted   that 


they  have  their  own  advantages.     It  has  been  understood) 
freely  admitted  that  they  bring   knowledge   of  the  confidence 
how  things  or  persons  will  behave,  and  that  they  Jj£^ed  in 
foster  the  prudential  habit  of  mind.    And  to  this 
it  may  be  added  that  there  may  be  gain  to  temper  both  of 
child  and  parent.     The  child  is  not  alienated,  as  he  some- 
times is  when   the   parent   is   punisher  :  and   the   parent,  by 
standing  aside  to  let  Nature  wield  the  tawse,  preserves  his 
equanimity.     It   is   when   we   read   that   these   reactions    are 
"proportionate  to  the  transgression,"  or,  in  more   concrete 


84     Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions 

statement,  that "  it  is  not  ordained  that  the  urchin  who  tumbles 
For  (a)  they      over  ^e  doorstep  should  suffer  in  excess  of  the 
are  not  pro-  amount  necessary,"  that  one  is  staggered  by  the 

t^traDs- tG  boldness  of  the  assertion.  A  little  lad  forgets 
gressions.  ^is  overcoat  —  is  it  proportionate  that  he  should 

have  an  inflammation  ?  Another  is  tempted  on  to  ice  —  is  it 
just  that  he  should  all  but,  or  altogether,  drown  ?  Two  small 
boys  climb  a  fence;  one  tears  his  knickerbockers,  the  other 
is  impaled  —  which  is  the  "ordained"  reaction?  The  truth 
is  that  the  days  of  an  a  priori  trust  in  Nature  are  past.  Her 
ways  are  too  well  known.  Merciless  and  pro- 
ness  of  Na^  digal  of  life  in  her  dealings  with  the  animal 
ture-  world,  "red  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravine,"1 

there  is  little  ground  for  believing  her  to  be  otherwise  dis- 
posed towards  man,  who  to  begin  with  is  among  the  most 
helpless  of  all  the  animals.  As  a  matter  of  fact  she  seems 
to  aim  in  a  hundred  ways  at  his  extinction,  in  which  indeed 
the  ghastly  records  of  infant  mortality  shew  that  she  too  often 
succeeds.  Precautions  may  of  course  be  overdone,  and  pa- 
rental nervousness  may  need  the  reminder  that  children  who 
run  no  risk  will  develope  no  self-reliance.  But  the  manifold 
precautions  that  hedge  about  the  young  in  every  good  home 
are  too  large  and  persistent  a  fact  to  be  set  down  to  a  nervous 
and  groundless  distrust.  Even  Mr  Spencer  sees  this.  "  During 
infancy,"  he  writes,  "  a  considerable  amount  of  absolutism  is 
necessary.  A  three-year  old  urchin  playing  with  an  open 
razor  cannot  be  allowed  to  learn  by  the  discipline  of  conse- 
quences ;  for  the  consequences  may  be  too  serious."  Indeed 
they  may;  and  one  may  venture  to  believe  they  often  are, 
even  when  the  years  are  more  than  three  times  three. 

(b)    It  is  an  even   graver   point   that   Nature's   reactions 
are  often  so  slow  and  stealthy  that  they  come  too  late.     For 

1 "  Tho'  Nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw 

With  ravine,  shrieked  against  his  creed." 

In  Memoriam,  LVI. 


Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions     85 

Nature  is  a  hard  dealer.     When  she  has  a  certain  stock   of 
wisdom  on  sale,  she  usually  exacts  the  uttermost     And  (b) 
farthing  as  the  price  of  what  we  are  wont  to  call,   Nature's  re- 

.  ,  ..  ,        ,      ,  ,  ,  .       actions  are 

not  without  reason,  "  our  dearly  bought  expen-  often  too  slow 
ence."  "  If  you  do  not  run  when  you  are  well,"  and  stealthy- 
says  Horace  to  the  sluggard,  "you  will  have  to  run  when 
you  have  got  the  dropsy."  It  may  be  said  that  this  —  this 
learning  only  after  the  heavy  hand  of  Nature  has  fallen  —  is 
no  more  than  the  adult  backslider  deserves.  But  can  we 
face  it  as  the  proportionate  punishment  of  heedless  youth? 
Are  there  no  records  of  health  lost  through  unwitting  neglect 
of  Nature's  laws ;  or  of  light-hearted  idleness  laying  up  for 
itself  a  dreary  reckoning ;  or  of  insidious  gradual  lapse  pre- 
paring the  way  for  some  moral  catastrophe ;  or  of  "  simple 
pleasure  foraging  for  death."  It  is  no  sufficient  offset  that 
the  lesson,  even  if  it  come  too  late,  is  learnt.  It  is  never 
enough  in  education,  any  more  than  in  the  pro- 
ductive arts,  to  look  simply  at  results.  We 
must  look  at  product  in  relation  to  its  cost.  For  relatively  to 
though  of  course  the  wisdom  that  comes  too  late 
to  the  individual  may  be  passed  on  to  the  world,  enforced 
by  all  the  bitter  emphasis  of  unavailing  regret,  this  can  hardly 
be  regarded  as  good  economy.  Burns  once  wrote  down  in 
verse  some  "Advice  to  a  Young  Friend."  It  is  throughout 
the  pith  of  sense.  But  nothing  in  it  is  more  suggestive,  or 
more  pathetic,  than  its  closing  words. 

"  In  ploughman  phrase,  God  send  you  speed 
Still  daily  to  grow  wiser; 
And  may  you  better  reck  the  rede 
Than  e'er  did  the  adviser." 

Is  it  presumptuous  to  add  that  there  are  two  great  arts, 
both  bound  up  with  education,  of  which  Mr  Spencer  appears 
to  underestimate  both  the  importance  and  the  difficulty  ? 

(a)  One  of  them  is  the  art  of  securing  the  confidence 
of  those  we  would  influence.  Mr  Spencer  sees  the  importance 


86      Mr  Spencer's  Doctrine  of  Natural  Reactions 

of  confidence.     Without  it,  disapprobation  —  the  disapproba- 
is  confidence      tion  that  is  a  main  element  in  dealing  with  graver 
auo^ing  by         offences  —  would  fail  of  its  effect.     But  he  invites 
children  to  criticism  when  he  tells  us  how  confidence  can 

naturar"1  be  won-     ^  child,  for  example,  wishes  to  play 

reactions?  with    fire.     Well,    reflects    the    mo'Iier,   "the 

mother  of  some  rationality,"  "he  is  sure  to  burn  himself 
sometime."  And  so  she  first  warns  him,  and  then  —  lets  him 
burn  himself;  with  the  reservation  (for  which  we  may  be 
thankful)  that  serious  damage  is  to  be  forcibly  prevented. 
The  lesson  is  twice-blessed.  The  child  not  only  learns  that 
fire  burns,  but  that  his  mother  is  his  best  friend.  Not  thus 
simple  is  the  winning  of  confidence.  It  is  an  art  of  many 
resources  —  of  patient  affection,  of  habitual  kindliness  in  little 
things,  of  ready  and  sincere  sympathy  with  youthful  plans 
and  projects,  of  firm  and  tolerant  guidance  in  graver  matters ; 
and,  must  we  not  add,  of  the  watchful  care,  parent  of  grati- 
tude, which  intervenes  to  avert,  or  to  soften,  the  consequences 
of  folly  or  blindness.  Mr  Spencer's  device  is  at  best  but  one 
resource,  and  not  the  best  resource,  among  many. 

(b)    The  other  art  that  receives  but  scant  recognition  at 

Over-con-          ^r  Spencer's  hands  is  the  art  of  punishment. 

fidencein  It  is  an  art  that  has  tested  the  powers  of  the 

natural  re-  ,  . 

actions  implies  greatest  minds,  sometimes  in  contrasting,  some- 
imperfect  re-  times  in  reconciling,  its  various  aspects  as  re- 
cognition of 

the  art  of  Pun-  formatory,  retnbutory,  and  deterrent.  Its  diffi- 
culties are  undeniable.  Nor  are  they  lessened 
when  its  main  concern  is  with  the  small  offenders  of  nursery 
or  schoolroom.  For  in  this  case  it  is  complicated  at  a  stroke 
by  considerations  of  moral  desert  and  moral  effect,  which 
must  needs  be  largely  ignored  by  the  jurist  or  the  political 
philosopher.  This  indeed  is  just  what  Mr  Spencer  is  so  quick 
to  perceive ;  and  it  is  part  of  his  argument  that  human  blun- 
dering has  so  manifestly  punctuated  attempts  at  the  adminis- 
tration of  punishment  that  we  had  better  for  all  time  to  come 


Mr   Spencer's  Doctrine   of  Natural  Reactions     87 

devolve  the  difficulties  upon  "nature."  The  policy  has  an 
attractive  simplicity,  even  when  we  reserve  the  responsibilities 
of  parental  disapprobation  and  imposition  of  indemnity.  Nor 
need  one  withhold  a  tribute  to  the  sanguine  optimism  of  the 
faith  that  young  lives,  left  alone,  will  struggle  on  to  victory. 

But,  then,  are  the  credentials  of  Nature  so  unimpeachable 
that  we  can,  with  light  hearts,  resign  to  her  a 
task  so  difficult?    Are  we  to  set  alone  upon  the   credentials 


judgment-seat  a  Power  who,  in  her  inexorable  "' 
decrees,  seems  often  so  coldly  indifferent  to  all 
those  ideas  of  merit,  desert,  responsibility,  repentance,  sin, 
crime,  frailty,  which  punishment,  in  human  hands,  has  had  to 
confront  ?  And  is  the  human  race  indeed  so  resourceless  that 
it  must  needs  despair  of  controlling  and  directing  the  immense 
fact  of  human  suffering  so  that  it  may  be  made  tributary  to 
individual  and  social  reformation1  ?  Nor  ought  it  to  be  for- 
gotten, in  this  connection,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  moral 
discipline  through  pity  and  forgivingness.  It  'is  sometimes 
those  who,  in  youthful  blunders  and  follies,  have  found  pity 
who  in  after  years  can  bestow  pity  ;  and  those  who  have  been 
forgiven,  even  without  indemnity,  who  are  likely  to  manifest 
that  forgiving  spirit  for  which  we  may  look  long  and  in  vain 
in  Nature.  Grant  that  Nature  can  heal  as  well  as  hurt. 
Grant  that  the  natural  forces  that  make  for  life,  health  and 
joy  are  strong  enough  to  triumph  in  the  long  run  (though  at 
grievous  cost)  over  those  that  make  for  suffering,  decay  and 
death,  it  is  still  no  part  of  Nature's  plan  to  remit  by  jot  or  tittle 
the  penalty  she  exacts  for  violated  law.  Even  if  we  believed 
her  to  be  just  —  which  is  not  easy  —  it  does  not  lie  in  her 
power,  as  it  does  in  that  of  man,  to  temper  or  supersede  justice 
by  mercy. 

Taken  altogether,  Mr  Spencer's  doctrine  sets  excessive 
store  upon  the  value  of  acquired  foresight  of  consequences. 
At  very  most  this  is  a  part,  and  in  the  young  certainly  it  is 

1  Cf.  p.  148. 


88      Mr  Spencer  s  Doctrine   of  Natural  Reactions 

far  from  the  most  hopeful  part  of  education.     Least  of  all  is  it 
sufficient  when  the  reactions  are  repressive,  as 

hope'futpTaTto       f°r  tne  most    Part  tnev  are  m   Mr   Spencer's 
foster  promis-        chapter.    There  is  a  wiser  and  more  sympathetic 

ing  instincts  r  .  J 

than  to  develop      way.     It  is  to  seek  out  and  to  find  the  promising 


instincts,  the  healthy  proclivities,  the  forward- 
struggling  tendencies,  and  by  all  means  in  our 
power  to  feed  and  foster  these  ;  so  that  child  or  youth  may 
be  emboldened  to  give  them  play  with  something  of  a  buoyant 
and  uncalculating  confidence1.  This  is  what  no  diet  of  "  natural 
reactions  "  can  ensure  ;  if  indeed  it  do  not  tend  to  create  a 
wary  and  calculating  spirit  which,  when  it  comes  early  in  life, 
is  fatal  to  the  wholesome  self-abandonment  of  the  years  when 
the  eyes  are  fixed  far  more  on  the  objects  of  pursuit  than 
on  the  pleasures  and  pains  these  objects  are  likely  to  bring. 
"All  education,"  says  Guyau,  "should  be  directed  to  this  end, 
to  convince  the  child  that  he  is  capable  of  good  and  incapable 
of  evil,  in  order  to  render  him  actually  so2."  This  is  a  policy 
which  wil}  not  obviate  blunders,  disappointments,  failures. 
And  the  "  reactions  "  alike  of  Nature  and  Society,  will  not 
fail  to  bring  these  home.  But  even  then,  the  hopeful  plan 
is  to  encourage  those  who  fall,  to  rise  and  struggle  forward, 
to  rally  the  good  that  is  in  them,  and,  even  to  the  limits 
of  pious  fraud,  to  convince  them  they  are  capable  of  better 
things. 

1  Cf.  p.  52. 

2  Education  and  Heredity,  p.  24. 


Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature  89 


CHAPTER   IV 
WORDSWORTHIAN  EDUCATION   OF  NATURE 

IT  is  not  profitable  to  fall  to  asking  what  Nature  can  do  for 
us  of  herself.     Nature  never  has  us  to  herself. 
It  is,  up  to  the  last  confines  of  our   knowledge,      Belief  in  the 

'  influence  of 

the  social  man,  and,  for  our  present  subject,  the  Nature  is  in- 
civilised  social  man  she  has  to  work  upon.     This  factthal^a?8 
applies  even  to  the  gospel  of  Wordsworth.      For  must  be  social 
although  that  greatest  of  all  the  apostles  of  the  SiST"*"* 
education    of   Nature — in    that    revolt   against 
the  over- elaboration  and  conventionality  of  society  which  he 
shared  with  Rousseau — has  often  enough  thrown  the  natural 
into  antithesis  to  the  social ;  and  though,  in  verse  never  to 
be  forgotten  he  has  told  us  in  "  Lucy "  how  Nature  can  set 
herself  to  "  make  a  lady  of  her  own,"  these  things  must  not  be 
pressed  unduly.     In  all  that  he  tells  us,  in  The  Prelude,  of  his 
own  childhood  and  youth,  the  influences  of  social  and  natural 
surroundings  are  not  antagonistic  to  each  other,  but  interfused 
and  cooperant.     It  is  of  the  child  as  nurtured  in  home  and 
social   circle   he   has  to   speak,  and  of  what   the  ministry  of 
Nature  can  do  for  it.     It  is  precisely  this,  in  truth,  that  makes 
this  ministry  of  Nature  a  greater  thing.     It  would  be  a  poor 
tribute   to   Nature   to  insist   that   man  has   to   be   born   into 
solitude  and  savagery  in  order  to  profit  by  her  influence.     The 


QO  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

greater  proof  of  what  she  can  do  lies  in  what  her  ministry  may 
be  to  those  whom  homes  and  social  nurture  have  fitted  to 
receive  it.  And  indeed  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  love  of 
Nature  is  so  far  from  being  a  youthful  illusion  that  fades  with 
the  years,  that  it  can  become  a  life-long  passion,  never  stronger 
than  when  man  has  learnt  to  feel  and  to  think  by  contact  with 
his  kind. 

These  influences  begin  long  before  the  presence  of  Nature 
is  sought  for  the  sake  of  any  deliberately  pursued 
fluences  come       charm  such  as  the  phrase  "love  of  Nature  "  has 
unsought.  come   to   suggest   to    adult   and  self-conscious 

minds.  "The  child's  world,"  as  Dr  John  Brown  so  truly  said, 
"  is  about  three  feet  high." l  The  greater  aspects  of  Nature  do 
not  enter  into  it ;  or  if,  in  some  vaguely  felt  fashion  they  do,  it 
is  still  as  no  more  than  the  little-heeded  background  for 
childish  interests,  amusements  and  sports.  These  are  its 
world.  None  the  less,  even  then,  the  unobtrusive  influences 
of  earth,  sea,  and  sky  do  their  work.  They  pass  imperceptibly 
and  unsought  into  the  soul. 

"...  out-door  sights 
Sweep  gradual  gospels  in. "  2 

And,  as  each  season  brings  its  own  wealth  of  varying  aspects, 
the  emotional  life  is  vaguely  but  powerfully  stirred. 

And  especi-  "  From  Nature  doth  emotion  come,  and  moods 

ally  feed  the  Of  calmness  equally  are  Nature's  gift, 

life  of  Feeling.  This  is  her  glory<»  8 

Hence  the  natural  delight  in  the  sunshine,  the  joy  in  the 
crisp  freshness  of  the  morning,  the  wonder  and  fear  at  flood, 

1  "  Children  are  long  of  seeing,  or  at  least  of  looking  at  what  is  above 
them;   they  like  the  ground,  and  its  flowers  and  stones,  its  'red  sodgers1 
and  lady-birds,  and  all  its  queer  things;   their  world  is  etc."     Horae  Subse- 
civae,  vol.  n.  p.  5. 

2  Mrs  Browning's  Aurora  Leigh,  Bk.  I.  (this  Book  of  the  poem  is  of 
educational  as  well  as  literary  interest). 

8  Prelude,  xm.  I. 


Words worthian  Education  of  Nature  91 

storm,  or  darkness.  Such  impressions  of  course,  for  many 
a  year,  come  only  to  go.  They  are  quickly  lost  among 
more  palpable,  homely,  and  habitual  interests.  Nor  have 
they  any  direct  moral  significance  whatever.  But  they  recur, 
and  as  years  go  on,  they  feed  into  ever  fuller  strength  the 
life  of  feeling.  Here  Nature  vies  with  imaginative  literature, 
art  and  religion  as  one  of  the  perennial  sources  of  emotional 
life.  Nor  is  her  power  to  move  the  heart  ever  so  needful  as 
in  an  age  when  the  urgent  practicalities  of  material  progress 
and  the  absorbing  and  sometimes  arid  intellectualities  of 
science  and  criticism  have  all  too  much  withdrawn  attention 
from  the  culture  of  the  emotions. 

For  this  awakening  of  the  life  of  Feeling  tells  in  two  direc- 
tions.    In  one  direction,  because  it  is  of  the 
nature  of  all  emotion   to   be   diffusive.     Even   th™^™^0"8 
when  aroused   by  definite  objects,  it  does  not   are  diffusive, 
absorb  itself  in  these.     It  tends  to  disturb  the  £5?^* * 
whole  man,  in  body  as  well  as  soul.     And  it 
does  this  the  more,  when  emotional  disturbance  is  great,  and 
the  objects  that  awaken  it  still  vaguely  apprehended  and  only 
half-defined.     This  is  what  happens  in  these  natural  influences 
of  early  years.     Their  intimations  do  not  fail  in  energy,  though 
they  fall  short  in  clearness.     Strong  feelings  of  delight,  or  fear, 
are  there ;  but  there  is  little  power  as  yet  of  discerning  whence 
they  come.     And  as  all  emotion  struggles  to  discharge  itself 
in  some  direction,  the  result  is  a  flooding  of  springs  of  vitality 
which    find  overflow  in  many   directions.      This  at    least  is 
Wordsworth. 

"  For  feeling  has  to  him  imparted  power 
That  through  the  growing  faculties  of  sense 
Doth  like  an  agent  of  the  one  great  Mind 
Create."  l 

It  creates  that  fuller  life  that  is  ready  to  express  itself  in  many 
modes. 

1  Prelude,  n.  255. 


92  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

But  as  time  goes  on,  a  second  result  ensues.  Discrimi- 
nation, and  more  definite  association,  gain 
uPon  tne  vaguer  elemental  life  of  mere  feeling. 


simple  and  en-      The  emotions   come   to   attach   themselves   to 

during  objects.  ,  .  . 

definite  experiences  and  definite  objects,  and 
above  all  to  objects  that  are  simple,  attainable,  and  enduring. 
This  is  what  Wordsworth  has  in  mind  when  he  declares  that 

"  Nature  never  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her."  l 

Nature  does  not  betray  us,  because  the  objects  she  so  prodi- 
gally offers  have  nothing  of  the  fragility  or  illusiveness  that 
blight  so  many  of  the  resources  of  man's  invention.  We  of 
course  may  come  short.  Habit,  against  which  these  apostles 
of  Nature  are  ever  at  war,  may  dull  the  sensibilities  and  blind 
the  eyes,  and  preoccupation  with  frivolities  or  cares  may  close 
the  ways  of  influence.  But  Nature  is  not  to  blame  for  this. 

"  The  morning  shines, 
Nor  heedeth  man's  perverseness."  2 

And  as  often  as  these  scales,  scales  of  our  own  making,  fall 
from  the  eyes,  Nature  is  the  same  great  Presence  as  ever,  still 
offering  to  us,  with  unwearied  bounty,  her  "  temperate  show  of 
objects  that  endure."3 

Such  influences,  moreover,  may  enjoy  a  second,  and  not 

Such  ex  eri       ^ess  P°^en^  l^e>  ^n  niemory.     This  comes  some- 

enceshavea        times  by  simple   association,    as  when   some 

B™7  ?esi  fm?         similar  experience  summons  from  the  buried 

portant  life  in       past  "  the  immortal  spirit  of  a  happy  day  "  spent 

memory.  ,  ... 

on  hill  or  shore.  But  sometimes  too,  it  comes, 
and  to  those  who  are  city-pent  perhaps  it  comes  oftenest,  by 
law  of  Contrast,  as  when  the  roar  of  the  traffic  of  streets  sends 
the  mind  to  the  memory  of  solitudes  "where  great  mornings 

1  Tintern  Abbey. 

2  Prelude,  XII.  31. 
8  Ib.  XIII.  31. 


Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature  93 

shine,  Around  the  bleating  pens,"  or,  as  when  the  prose  poet 
of  revolution  lifts  our  minds  from  the  slaughter  of  barricades  to 
the  vision  of  ships  far  off  on  the  silent  main.     Wordsworth 
goes  further  still.    For  in  the  lines  (too  familiar      Can  ^^ 
for  quotation)  in  which  he  tells  how  his  mind   memories  in- 
has  often  turned  to  wood-wandering  Wye,  in  j^""^" 
recoil  from  "  the  fretful  stir  unprofitable  and 
fever  of  the  world,"  he  makes   the  bolder  claim   that   the 
reawakened  emotions  of  such  memories 

"may  have  no  trivial  influence 
On  that  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life, 
His  little  nameless  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love." 

They  may,  when  the  spirit  has  been  otherwise  impelled  in 
such  direction.  For  all  heightening  of  emotion  in  a  disciplined 
character  tends  to  seek  its  outlet  more  especially  through  those 
ways  of  expression  that  have  become  habitual  and  congenial. 
But  the  more  sober  claim  is  that  the  recall  of  all  experiences  of 
natural  piety  can  enrich  our  lives  with  a  sense  of  possession 
that  is  inalienable  and  self-sufficing. 

"  Bid  me  work,  but  may  no  tie 
Keep  me  from  the  open  sky  " 

says  one  who  well  knew  Nature's  resources.1  The  words  will 
find  an  echo  in  the  hearts  of  all  who,  however  humbly,  have 
come  to  know  and  to  love  Nature.  She  never  did  betray 
them.  For,  at  very  least,  she  hangs  the  walls  of  memory  with 
pictures  that  flash  upon  the  visionary  eye  with  a  satisfying  and 
restorative  joy. 

"To  make  this  earth  our  heritage, 
A  cheerful  and  a  changing  page, 
God's  bright  and  intricate  device 
Of  day  and  season  doth  suffice."  a 

1  Barnes. 

2  Louis  Stevenson,  Underwoods* 


94  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

There  are  two  ways  at  least  in  which  this  may  powerfully 
influence  after-years. 

(a)    Inward  resource  may  bring  that  "  self-sufficing  power 

of  solitude  " l  which  is  peculiarly  favourable  to  a 

calm,  cheerful,  and  reflective  outlook  upon  life, 
self-sufficing-  This  will  not,  of  course,  be  always  so.  Has  not 

Wordsworth  himself  told  us,  in  a  masterpiece  of 
epitaph,  how  dissatisfied  pride  and  ambition  may,  despite  a 
golden  promise,  find  only  a  bitterer  embitterment  in  the  sweet 
seclusion  of  the  wilderness,  and  a  deeper  sadness  in  scenes  of 
beauty  poisoned  by  the  stings  of  a  disappointed  egoism?2 
Such  must  find  their  anodyne  in  cities,  not  in  solitude.  Yet 
we  must  not  generalise  from  an  instance  like  this.  That 
inability  to  be  alone  with  Nature  which  is  so  common,  is  a 
sure  sign  of  spiritual  weakness.  It  needs  counteracting,  and 
few  counteractives  are  better  than  those  actual  and  remembered 
delights  which  Nature  has  in  her  gift. 

(&)   A  second  gain  is  that  love  of  Nature,  early  awakened, 

gives  direction  to  the  pleasures  and  recreations 

and  influences 

ideals  of  of  later  life.     It  is  of  course  not  in  the  fields  of 

pastime  that  the  virtues  grow;  or  at  most  it  is 
only  the  lesser  virtues  that  grow  there.  Yet  it  is  hardly  doubtful 
that  the  kind  of  life  an  ordinary  family  leads,  and  the  friend- 
ships which  its  members  form,  are  as  much  determined  by 
the  accepted  ideal  of  recreation,  as  by  the  accepted  ideal 
of  morality.  In  this  way,  from  the  shaping  of  household  or 
individual  ideals  of  pleasure,  indirect  results  may  come  to 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  set  limits. 

it  also  To  this  it  must  be  added  that  love  of  Nature 

heSthy^ut-         tends  to  develope  a  healthy,  care-free,  outward 
ward  outlook.       outlook  upon  things,  which  is  of  peculiar  value 

1  Cf.  Prelude,  n.  76, 

"And  I  was  taught  to  feel,  perhaps  too  much, 
The  self-sufficing  power  of  Solitude." 

*  Poems,  vol.  I.  p.  44.     (Moxon.) 


Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature  95 

in  days  when  city-life  is  more  and  more  with  us.  And  it 
does  this  perhaps  most  of  all,  when  it  strikes  alliance  with 
that  interest  in  the  animate  and  inanimate  world  which  the 
field  naturalist  knows  how  to  foster.  For  the  young  who 
are  city-born  and  city-bred  run  risks.  Daily  sight  or  rumour 
of  much  that  is  forbidding  and  deplorable  may  make  them 
case-hardened  to  poverty  and  misery  for  the  rest  of  their 
lives.  Or  perhaps,  and  all  the  more  if  they  belong  to  pitiful 
and  public-spirited  homes,  they  may  too  soon  be  brought 
compassionately  face  to  face  with  folly,  squalor,  and  vice,  and 
thereby  begin  to  be  prematurely  vexed  with  social  problems 
that  are  still  far  beyond  them.  There  are  no  doubt  counter- 
actives. And  the  city  of  course  can  furnish  many  of  its  own. 
Has  it  not  its  games  and  pastimes,  its  parks,  museums,  libraries, 
and  pageants,  its  rushing  tides  of  many-coloured  industrial  and 
commercial  life?  Yet  we  may  welcome  these  without  neglect- 
ing that  interest  in  the  green  earth,  and  in  its  feathered  and  four- 
footed  tenantry,  which  is  seemingly  instinctive  in  most  children, 
and  can  indubitably  by  right  nurture  —  by  country  holiday,  by 
love  of  garden,  by  skill  with  pencil  or  brush,  by  the  fascination 
of  natural  history  —  be  fostered  into  a  lifelong  resource. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  in  turning  thus  to  Nature,  we 
turn  away  from  man.     Exclusive  preoccupation 

*  Through 

with  society  is  not  the  way  to  know  it  best,    communion 
Men  seldom  understand  human  life  better,  or 


more  deeplv  realise  its  meaning,  than  when  they  to  understand 

f    .  .  ,     Life  better. 

can  break  the  bonds  of  city  habit,  and  stand 
aside  for  a  season  in  wholesome  and  whole-hearted  surrender 
to  interests  that  seem  to  have  little  to  do  with  the  ways  of  men 
and  cities. 

"  One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 

May  teach  you  more  of  man, 

Of  moral  evil  and  of  good 

Than  all  the  sages  can." 

And  though  the  prosaic  mind  would  no  doubt  have  us  pause 


96  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

to  ask  how  an  impulse  can  bring  all  this  knowledge,  there  is 
reason  in  the  rhetoric  none  the  less.  Even  if  all  the  woods 
that  ever  were  greened  speak  nothing  to  us  of  either  good  or 
evil,  they  yet  bring  us  more  than  we  seek  from  them.  Their 
influences  can  wean  us  from  the  anxious,  or  frivolous,  or  sordid, 
or  prejudiced,  or  paltry  thoughts,  which  so  often  in  the  life  of 
the  world  rise  like  exhalations  to  distort  our  moral  perceptions. 
For,  as  these  roll  aside  in  our  seasons  of  retreat,  we  begin  to 
see  the  facts  of  life  and  experience  in  a  truer  perspective.  There 
are  times  when  it  is  not  teaching  that  we  need,  though  it  were 
the  teaching  of  all  the  sages.  It  is  rather  the  power  truly  to 
see  what  we  have  been  told  a  thousand  times.  And  this  is 
what  Nature  can  do,  as  often  as  she  withdraws  the  veil  woven 
by  our  own  troubled  and  agitated  hearts. 

Wordsworth   asks  us   to  believe   more   than   this.     Bred 

Wordsworth's     himself    in   the   laP    °f    Nature>  ne  came  to  see> 

belief  in  the     *    with  a  true  insight,  that  human  life,  especially 
proach°ngP~         the  life  of  shepherds  and  other  men  of   the 
Man  through        wilderness,  has  a  glamour  thrown  around  it  by 
the  scenes  amidst  which  its  work  is  done. 

"  First  I  looked 
At  man  through  objects  that  were  great  or  fair." l 

And  he  was  deeply  convinced  that  it  was  by  thus  approaching 
life  with  a  prepossession  to  look  on  "  the  golden  side  of  the 
shield,"  that  in  the  long  run  there  would  settle  down  a  truer 
because  a  more  hopeful  and  more  sympathetic  view  of  human 
nature. 

To  many  this  has  appeared  far-fetched  and  fanciful.  And 
it  maybe  admitted  that  the  side  of  the  shield  on  which  we  first 
look  is  that  which  is  presented  by  the  kind  of  life  that  goes  on 
in  the  Home,  whether  this  be  in  heart  of  city  or  heart  of  coun- 
try. We  need  too  the  reminder  that  the  life  that  is  enfolded 
by  dales  and  hills,  as  Wordsworth  himself  knew  well,  may  be 

1  Prelude,  vm.  215-339. 


Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature  97 

far  from  idyllic,  and  indeed  not  morally  better  than  that  which 
struggles  and  sins  under  "the  smoke  counterpane  "  of  a  great 
city.  And,  in  any  case,  it  is  not  through  Nature  that  man  is, 
or  ever  can,  be  approached  by  the  vast  majority.  Yet  a  truth 
remains.  It  may  be  a  lifelong  gain  to  boy  and 
girl  to  have  formed  their  first  notions  of  life  and 


work  from  what  they  have  seen  in  country  places,    wordsworth- 

ian  view. 

For,  just  as  the  simpler,  more  primitive,  and 
elemental  life  of  the  Ballad  appeals  to  the  young  imagination 
more  than  the  later  and  more  elaborated  literary  product,  so 
with  the  homely  epic  of  humble  life  that  is  for  ever  repeating 
itself  under  the  sunshine  and  the  rain  in  the  work  of  field 
and  fold.  Cheerful  toil  as  the  condition  of  livelihood,  the 
well-earned  rest  of  toils  obscure,  the  honest  independence  that 
looks  the  world  in  the  face,  and  all  the  changes  of  the  ordinary 
lot  —  it  is  no  fancy  that  these  stand  out,  and  can  be  seen  in  the 
life  of  the  country,  as  they  never  can  amidst  the  mechanism 
and  organisation,  the  class  estrangements  and  the  sheer  mass 
of  the  more  developed  but  less  comprehensible  avocations  of 
the  city.  They  are  more  obviously  of  the  very  substance  of 
the  lives  of  those  who  pursue  them  :  they  are  more  attractive 
by  far  in  their  surroundings;  and,  as  simple  matter  of  fact, 
they  appeal  with  incomparably  greater  force  to  youthful  interest 
and  sympathy.  And  so  long  as  this  is  so,  there  must  be  gain, 
despite  all  qualifications,  in  approaching  life  "on  the  golden 
side  of  the  shield." 

There  remains  a  further  point,  less  easy  to  define.     Our 
great  prophets  of  Nature  are  realists  to  the  core.      The  claim 
They  are  sworn  foes  of  "the  pathetic  fallacy"   that  Nature 

,  .  .  ,     .  .  reveals  Ideas 

that  sees  in  the  external  world  the  mere  mirror  must  be 
of  human  moods  and  passions.    And  accordingly  admitted. 
they  have  ever  insisted  that  "  half-revealed  and  half-concealed  " 
there  lies  in  visible  appearances  a  revelation  of  Ideas,  and  of 
God  in  whom  all  Ideas  find  their  source  and  unity. 

This  high  doctrine  is  not  to  be  lightly  brushed  aside  as 


98  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

misty  metaphysics.1  At  very  least  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
there  lies  in  Nature  a  store  of  imagery  through  which  imagina- 
tion can  make  ideas,  and  not  least  moral  ideas,  both  clear  and 
vivid. 

"  Ye  breezes  and  soft  airs, 

Whose  subtle  intercourse  with  breathing  flowers, 
Feelingly  watched,  might  teach  Man's  haughty  race 
How  without  injury  to  take,  to  give 
Without  offence  ;   ye  who  as  if  to  shew 
The  wondrous  influence  of  power  gently  used, 
Bend  the  complying  heads  of  lordly  pines, 
And,  with  a  touch,  shift  the  stupendous  clouds 
Through  the  whole  compass  of  the  sky." 

But  there  is  more  than  this.  Even  an  unlettered  mind 
may  see  Power  in  the  flooded  torrent,  Peace  in  the  sheen  of 
silent  and  sailless  seas,  Evanescence  in  the  leaves  of  the  forest. 
And  though  it  remains  true  that  such  impressions  work  more 
through  the  emotions  they  excite  than  through  the  conceptions 
they  convey,  there  is  more  in  such  experience  than  mere 
feeling.  There  are  distinguishable  modes  of  feeling  suggestive 
of  diverse  modes  of  being.  And  when  these  experiences  repeat 
themselves,  it  need  not  be  doubted  that,  if  only  they  evade 
the  dulling  influences  of  riabit,  they  may  carry  "  intimations  " 
—  to  use  a  Wordsworthian  word  —  of  Ideas  that  have  a  veritable 
objective  existence. 

On  the  other  hand  we  must  be  cautious  of  crediting  Nature 

But  we  may      with  a  revelation  of  moral  laws  and  moral  values 

not  credit  in  any  ordinary  sense  of  the  words.     In  those 

Nature  with  a         .  ,          ^ _ 

revelation  of  hours  when  Nature  speaks  to  us,  our  responsive 
moral  values.  attention  is  due,  in  large  part,  to  an  aesthetic 
appreciation  which  has  comparatively  little  to  do  with  the 
moral  life.  And  is  it  not  part  of  the  charm  of  the  breezes  and 

1  As,  e.g.  by  Macaulay  ;  cf.  Trevelyan's  Life  and  Letters  of  Macaulay, 
II.  283,  "  There  are  the  old  raptures  about  mountains  and  cataracts  ;  the 
old  flimsy  philosophy  about  the  effect  of  scenery  on  the  mind,  etc." 


Wordsworthian  Edtication  of  Natiire  99 

soft  airs  and  vernal  woods  that  they  so  beguile  us,  that  mora\ 
distinctions  are  for  the  time  forgotten,  and  moral  problems 
cease  from  troubling? 

"  Whoso 

Affronts  thy  eye  of  Solitude  shall  learn 
That  her  mild  nature  can  be  terrible," 

says  Wordsworth.  But  it  is  only  in  figure  that  Nature  shines 
upon  the  saint  and  scowls  upon  the  sinner.  Not  to  her  need 
we  look  for  that  definiteness  of  guidance,  that  sifting  of  the 
instincts  in  the  service  of  an  ideal,  that  deliberate  nurture  of 
the  habits,  all  of  which  lie  upon  the  very  threshold  of  morality. 
For  such  things  we  must  turn  to  Society. 

Nor  need  this  conclusion  be  modified  even  if  we  include  in 
the  influence  of  Nature  that  education  by  means 
of  those  examples  of  the  animal  world,  which 
have  for  ages  been  made  to  furnish  forth  the   attached  to 
veiled  homilies  of  parable  and  fable.    The  debt   example*  of 
is  not  to  be  repudiated.    Grant  that  anxiety  has  JJe  ?!Vmal 
learnt  something  of  the  care-free  spirit  from  the 
fowls  of  the  air,  and  industry  and  prudence  found  confirma- 
tion in  the  economy  of  ants  and  beavers.     Yet  such  things 
can  only  profit  when,  in  the  light  of  other  experiences,  we  have 
already  come  to  know  what  are  virtues  and  what  vices.     The 
whole  animal  world  taken  together  can  tell  us  nothing  of  this. 
Even  its  aristocracy,   if  seriously  weighed  in  human  scales, 
is  far   from   respectable.      It   is   the   very   poverty  of   their 
endowment  that  fits  them  for  examples,  because  it  makes  the 
few  qualities  they  have  so  salient.     And  though  it  is  a  well- 
established  law  of  animal  life  that  the  "fittest"  survives,  there 
need  be  nothing  in  the  fitness  of  the  survivors  to  invite  our 
moral  approbation;  seeing  that  "  the  fittest  to  survive  "  appears 
to  mean  the  fittest  to  prevent  its  neighbours  from  surviving. 
It  is  not  really  to  learn  from  them  that  we  need  turn  to  the 
animals.     It  is  to  pity  and  sympathise,  to  protect  them  from 


ioo  Wordsworthian  Education  of  Nature 

human  cruelty,  to  save  them  from  each  other,  and  to  find 
delight  for  ourselves  in  watching  their  laborious,  or  sportive, 
or  cunning,  or  incomprehensible  ways.  Certainly  the  animals 
do  not  set  themselves  up  as  examples,  and  it  would  perhaps  be 
too  much  to  impose  on  them  a  thing  so  obviously  beyond  the 
majority  of  the  human  race. 


Educative  Influences^  '.  101 


CHAPTER   V 
FAMILY,  SCHOOL,   FRIENDSHIP 


PHILOSOPHERS  have  concerned  themselves  with  the  "  origin 
of  society  "  ;  but  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  , 

the  origin  of  solitude  would  really  be  the  more   nature  to  be 
natural  enquiry.     For  from  first  to  last  man  is   s 
a  "social  animal."     It  is  through  the  nurture  and  discipline 
which   society  furnishes ;  it  is  through   the   sphere   of  action 
which  it  provides,  that  he  can  alone  develope  his  powers.    From 
the  moment  he  crosses  the  threshold  of  life  he  passes  irrevo- 
cably under  social  influences. 

Hence  psychologists  have,  with  good  reason,  come  to  speak 
of  "social   heredity."1     In  a  sense  this  is  not 

Each  new 

heredity  at  all.     r  or  the  phrase  is  not  meant  to  m e  enters  into 
suggest  any  direct  transmission  of  qualities,  be  ^e^tige 
they  natural  qualities  or  acquired,  from  parent   "  Social  here- 
to offspring.     It  simply  formulates  the  fact  that,   dlty>" 
as  the  members  of  one  generation  after  another  pass  away, 

*  Cf.  p.  70. 


IO2          .  Social  Influences 

they  do  not  leave  their  successors  to  begin  the  world  afresh. 
Their  work  does  not  perish  with  them.  On  the  contrary  it  is 
conserved  and  stored  up  in  such  modifications,  small  or  great, 
as  they  may  have  succeeded  in  effecting  in  their  environment  ; 
so  that  neither  arts,  nor  institutions,  nor  customs  and  traditions, 
nor  language  and  literature,  are  left  precisely  as  they  found 
them.  Into  this  ever-growing  and  ever-changing  social  heritage 
each  new  life  comes  ;  and  by  it  is  powerfully  wrought  upon, 
from  the  moment  when  it  emerges  on  a  world  thus  long  and 
elaborately  prepared  to  receive  it.  Doubts  and  perplexities 
enough  may  arise  (as  we  have  seen)  in  regard  to  other  modes 
of  heredity.  But  analysis  does  not  throw  doubts  upon  this. 
For  the  deeper  analysis  goes,  the  more  convincingly  does  it 
disclose  the  ways  in  which,  through  imitation  and  adaptation, 
the  growing  life  adjusts  itself  to  given  environment,  and  feeds 
upon  this  inherited  pasture.  Much  that  might  on  a  first  view 
seem  congenital,  much  that  might  too  rashly  be  assumed  to  be 
hereditary  in  the  stricter  sense  of  the  word,  may  find  a  simpler 
explanation  in  this  early,  penetrating,  and  constant  action  of 
society. 

It  manifestly  follows  that  this  conception  of  social  "  here- 
dity "  tends  to  emphasise  educational  responsi- 
and      bility.     It  gives  a  new  depth  to  the  conviction 


educational          (never  far  from  the  reflective  observer)  that  boy 

responsibility.         v  j-c    j 

or  girl  is  from  earliest  years  profoundly  modified 
for  good  or  for  evil  by  the  kind  of  home  the  parent  prepares 
for  his  family,  and  by  the  wider  social  conditions  which  the 
citizen  takes  his  share  in  providing  for  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  his  country.  And  though  of  course  the  congenital  endow- 
ment that  is  Nature's  gift  remains  a  fact  of  the  first  magnitude, 
a  grasp  of  what  "  social  heredity  "  really  means  will  go  far  to 
dispel  the  indolent  assumption,  refuge  of  irresponsibility  and 
pretext  for  neglect,  that  congenital  endowment,  however  strong, 
will  ever  educate  itself.1  For  it  will  reveal  the  extent  to  which, 

1  Cf.  P.  35- 


The  Family  103 

from  birth  and  even  before  it,  society  intervenes,  and  lay  bare 
the  fact  that  many  a  so-called  "  natural  reaction "  could  only 
befall  a  being  who  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  a 
community.  This  is  a  truth  to  which  the  very  rebels  of 
Society — the  satirists,  cynics,  solitaries — cannot  but  choose, 
even  in  their  own  despite,  to  bear  their  witness.  They  may 
denounce  society,  or  abjure  it.  But  none  the 

Even  the 

less  they  will  be  found,  upon  closer  scrutiny,  to   anti-social 
owe  that  very  moral  strength  and  so-called  inde-  sPir*tis ' de- 

pendent  upon 

pendence  which  fits  them  to  stand  up  against  social 
society,  to  the  social   influences  in  which  they  mflu 
have  been  cradled  and  reared.     Poets  have  sometimes  seen  in 
the  "travelled  boulders"  of  geology  the  symbols  of  solitariness. 
Yet  even  these  will  disclose  to  the  scientific  eye  the  tell-tale 
lineaments  that   record   the  days  when,  ice-berg   borne,  they 
tossed  upon  vanished  seas. 

Now  of  course  the  instruments  through  which  society 
thus  sets  its  seal  upon  its  members  are  many,  too  many  for 
enumeration.  They  are,  in  truth,  as  many  as  are  social 
institutions,  and  the  manifold  means  by  which  these  set  their 
stamp  upon  their  members.  But  some  are  salient.  And  of 
these  first  in  time,  first  also  some  would  add  in  importance,  is 
the  Family. 


The  Family 

We  must  be  especially  careful  not  to  limit  what  the  Family 
gives   to   what   is  done  consciously  and  of  set 
purpose  by  the  parent.     There  is  room  for  this 


no  doubt;  and  indeed  there  is  so  much  room  Family  is 

_...,,  wider  than 

for  it,  that  it  has  become  a  common-place  that  what  is  done 
the  education  of  children  by  parents  brings,  as 
unsought   bonus,  the  education  of  parents   by 


IO4  The  Family 

children.  But  the  vital  matter  is  not  the  home  as  parents 
make  it  in  seasons  of  edification,  when  their  consciences  are 
on  the  alert :  it  is  the  home  as  it  normally  is  in  its  habitual 
preferences,  its  predominant  interests,  its  settled  estimates  of 
persons  and  pursuits,  its  ordinary  circle  of  as- 
pendsupon  sociates,  its  standard  of  living,  its  accepted 
which  the* Ufe  ideals  °f  work  and  °f  amusement.  For  it  is 
homehabitu-  not  only  from  the  family,  but  with  the  family 

any  exempli-  ^^   that   we    all    begin    tQ    jook   out    upQn    the 

world.  And  if  this  first  outlook  is  to  see  the 
things  for  which  men  live  in  something  like  their  true  perspec- 
tive, and  not  as  distorted  through  the  deluding  medium  of  the 
home  that  is  idle,  frivolous,  sordid,  grasping,  quarrelsome,  or 
sentimental,  this  will  be  due  far  less  to  what  is  done  of  express 
educational  design,  far  more  to  the  ideal  of  life  which  the 
Family  consistently  embodies.  For  it  is  only  thus  that  the 
scale  of  moral  valuation  which  the  Family  has  wrought  into 
its  life  will  be  likely,  as  the  years  go  round,  to  reflect  itself 
in  the  habitual  feelings,  estimates,  and  actions  of  its  mem- 
bers. 

This   kind   of   influence   is    moreover   peculiarly   effective 
Ties  of  natu-      because  it  is  made  easier  by  the  tie  of  natural 
rai  affection         affection.     Without  this,  and  the  trustful  confi- 
way  for  dence  which   goes  with  it,  comparatively  little 

influence.  can  ^Q  done.     And  many  a  parent  in  whom  the 

qualities  which  win  it  have  been  lacking,  even  though  he  may 
have  been  masterful  and  reasonable,  has  been  compelled  to 
realise  his  impotence.  Yet,  normally,  the  parent  has  a  manifest 
advantage.  That  confidence  which  a  stranger  has  to  gain  with 
difficulty,  he  finds  either  ready  to  hand,  or  at  most  less  arduous 
to  win.  This  is  a  double  gain.  It  prompts  a  spontaneous 
trustfulness  which  opens  the  ways  for  influence,  and,  as  lesser 
adjunct,  it  invests  a  father's  or  a  mother's  disapprobation  with 
a  power  to  restrain  and  chasten  such  as  cannot  be  found  when 


The  Family  105 

love  and  trust  are  absent.  In  this  the  Family  is  pre-eminent. 
No  teacher  however  kindly,  no  public  authority  however  pater- 
nal and  mild,  can  rival  it  here.  And  if  this  be  lost,  whether 
by  aloofness  of  parents,  or  wreck  of  family  life,  or  by  decay  of 
the  family  as  an  institution,  one  of  the  purest  springs  of  moral 
influence  will  be  frozen  at  its  source. 

It  is  a  further  advantage   that  the   parent  is   beyond  all 
others  in  a  position  to  adapt  his  treatment  to 
the  individual  need.    For  when  father  or  mother,  fu"her!  pTcu- 
as  is  their  wont,  think  their  own  progeny  unique,  J^"}^*^* 
it  is   no  good  policy   roughly   to   disillusionise  menttothe 
them.     Better    admit    ungrudgingly   that   their  £djidual 
idols   are   unique;  as  indeed   they  are,  in  the 
sense  that  they  stand  in  need  of  individual  watchfulness  and 
care.     This  is  already  recognised  in  matters  physiological,  even 
in  the  homely  details  of  diet  and  hygiene.     And   are  we  to 
suppose  that  it  ought  to  be  otherwise  with  the  promising  or 
menacing  instincts,  the  besetting  weaknesses,  the  tone  or  the 
twists  of  temperament,  even  the  oddities,  which  so  manifestly 
diversify  the  children  of  a  common  home ;  and  which  cannot 
possibly  have  justice  done  to  them  when  there  is  not  the  ever 
watchful  eye,  the  ever  helpful  hand. 

Hence  there  is  never  so  much  room  for  the  influence  of 
the  Family  as  when  public  education  is  organised 
on   a   great   scale,   and  when   public  authority  u^^0^~ 
strives  in  vain  to  become  paternal.     It  is  an  idle  can  never 
fear  to  fancy  that  such  things  can  supersede  the  pTmify de  the 
functions  of  the  Family.    Is  it  needful  to  remem- 
ber how  much  of  the  concrete  individuality  of  even  the  average 
child  slips  through  the  inevitably  wide  mesh  of  forms  of  organ- 
isation which  must  needs  deal  with  their  material  roughly  and 
in  the  mass?     Nay,  it  is  precisely  when  education  is  organised 
by  public  authority  that  there  is  more  need  than  ever  of  a  place 
where  the  individuality  of  the  child,  upon  which  Rousseau  and 


io6  The  Family 

Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  laid  such  passionate  stress,  may  with 
the  discerning  eyes  of  anxious  affection  be  studied,  cared  for, 
tended,  restrained,  developed.  For  the  family  has  much  to 
give  that  is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Natural  affection  is 
not  its  only  lever.  There  are  common  joys  and  common 
sorrows  :  and,  as  time  goes  on,  there  come  the  cementing 
memories  of  a  common  past.  There  is  disinterested  delight  in 
the  projects  and  the  successes  of  kith  and  kin,  and  gratitude 
for  benefits  which  leave  no  uneasy  sense  of  indebtedness.  Not 
least  there  is  that  sincere  and  ready  recognition  for  which  we 
all  crave,  and  which  we  can  seldom  find  in  equal  measure 
elsewhere. 

To  this  we  must  add  that  these  influences  broaden  out, 
like  a  circle  in  the  water,  far  beyond  the  family 

Pale-     TneY  Plant  the  seeds  °f  tne  SOcial  VirtUCS. 

of  the  social  For  it  is  the  substantial  nurture  of  the  affections 
within  the  home  that  first  gives  its  members 
genuinely  developed  affections  to  carry  beyond  it.  "  No  cold 
relation  is  a  zealous  citizen,"  says  Burke1.  The  words  are 
perhaps  too  absolute.  For  it  is  one  of  the  requirements  of  fact 
that,  in  any  scheme  of  moral  growth,  we  must  find  room  for 
the  exceptional  type  that  loves  kind  more  than  kindred,  even 
to  that  perilous  and  paradoxical  extreme  of  "  hating  father  and 
mother."  Yet  for  Burke's  aphorism  and  for  all  like  sayings, 
there  remains  the  substantial  justification  that  from  kin  to  kind 
is  the  normal  path  of  the  development  of  the  human  affections. 
It  is  just  here,  in  truth,  that  individualistic  thinkers  have 
set  themselves  a  problem  needlessly  insoluble, 
ism  mustUbe"  Victimised  by  the  fallacies  of  abstraction,  they 
qualified  by  nave  treated  the  individual  as  the  social  unit, 

the  fact  that 

Family  life  is  and  have  exhausted  their  resources  in  explaining 
natural  to  how  out  of  seif.seeking,  if  not  mutually  hostile 

human  atoms,  the  strong  and  oftentimes  self- 
1  Reflections  on  the  Revolution,  Works,  vol.  II.  p.  320. 


The  Family  107 

sacrificing  social  sympathies  can  be  developed.  They  might 
have  spared  themselves  much  ingenious  labour.  Their  social 
atom  is  an  abstraction.  It  is  the  family,  not  the  atomic  indi- 
vidual, that  is  the  block  with  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
have  to  build.  Those  whose  lot  social  heredity  has  cast  in 
even  an  ordinary  family  will  find  themselves,  when  they  come 
to  years  of  reflection,  already  far  upon  the  beaten  track  that 
leads  to  the  wider  social  sympathies.  And  when  we  consider 
how  early  all  these  home  influences  begin,  when  the  soul  is 
still  plastic,  generous,  unsuspicious  ;  and  how  uninterruptedly 
they  may  continue  right  on  through  youth,  it  is  not  wonderful 
that  the  family  has  been  regarded  as,  in  moral  education,  the 
most  indispensable  of  all  instruments. 

It  cannot,  however,  do  everything.     And  in  particular  it 
cannot  secure  for  its  members  adequate  variety      Limits  to  the 
of  development.     When  the  inmates  of  a  house-   influence  of 
hold  mix  little  with  the  world,  when,  for  example, 


boys  or  girls   do  not  go  to  school  or  to   the   secure  ade- 

.    .         quate  variety 

University,  or  when  they  are  not  stimulated  by  Of  deveiop- 
variety  of  pursuits,  we  know  the  result.     How-  ment* 
ever  excellent  they  may  be,  they  depressingly  suggest  that  they 
have  been  turned  out  according  to  pattern  :  — 

"  The  vicar's  daughters  look  so  good, 
We  think  that  they  are  made  of  wood. 
Like  rests  for  hymnbooks  there  they  stand, 
With  each  a  hymnbook  in  her  hand  V 

Is  it  needful  to  recall  the  familiar  warning  that  "  home-keeping 
youth  have  ever  homely  wits  "  ? 

The  family  may  also  easily  fail  in  adequately  enforcing 
discipline.  It  aims  high  :  the  obedience  and  subordination 
it  would  secure  must  be  both  prompt  and  willing.  And 

1  Miss  Kendall's  Dreams  to  Sell. 


io8  The  Family 

aiming  high,  it  often  fails,  sometimes  in  one  direction,  some- 
times in  another.  Thus  there  is  a  type  of 
haieTrfects0'  Parent  wno  knows  nothing  of  authority  but  the 
as  a  discipii-  word,  and  it  may  be  the  blow,  of  command, 
nary  auth  ^^  &  corresponding  type  of  child  whose  attitude 

is  fear  and  resentment.  Discipline  suffers  here 
from  one  extreme  ;  as  in  opposite  cases  it  may  suffer,  or  vanish, 
under  a  foolish  lenience.  The  latter  is  perhaps  the  commoner  ; 
and  one  may  venture  to  suspect  that  there  are  many  sons  and 
daughters  even  of  excellent  homes  who  never  understand  the 
meaning  of  an  authority  that  is  not  to  be  called  in  question,  till 
they  meet  it,  as  they  certainly  will,  in  the  school  or  in  the  world. 
There  may  be  a  more  serious  failure  still.  For  experience 
too  manifestly  shows  how  readily  a  household, 
united  within  its  own  limits,  may  be  perverted 


corporate  jnto    an    ugly    monopoly,    reckless,    intolerant, 

selfishness  ,  -       „      .  ,  ,          ,  1-11 

fatal  to  the  jealous  of  all  beyond  it,  thereby  admirably 
thiesr  sympa"  blighting  the  growth  of  those  wider  sympathies 
it  ought  to  foster.  It  is  so  easy  to  condone  a 
collective  selfishness,  when  every  participant  may  claim  to  be, 
after  a  fashion,  zealous  for  others'  advancement.  Clearly  this 
is  not,  the  nursery  of  the  public  affections.  Nor,  unhappily,  is 
it  possible  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  pitiful  fact  that  in  every 
considerable  community  there  are  families,  families  in  name, 
in  which  even  corporate  family  selfishness  would  mean  a  moral 
reformation.  Yet  even  when  the  worst  is  said,  the  average 
family  is  at  least  good  enough  to  encourage  the  hope  that  it 
can  be  made  better,  and  thereby  come  to  be,  in  ever  fuller 
measure,  alike  preparation  and  supplement  to  the  education  of 
school  and  after  life  1. 

1  If  Plato  is  to  be  believed  there  is  a  kind  of  love,  a  love  to  kith  and 
kin,  to  which  a  man  may  compel  himself,  and  which  even  the  heartlessness 
of  parents  cannot  alienate.  See  the  remarkable  passage  in  the  Protagoras 
346  which  ends,  "  But  the  good  man  dissembles  his  feelings,  and  constrains 


The  School  109 


The  School 

Though  the  School,  especially  the  preparatory  school,  is 
sometimes  said  to  be  but  a  larger  family,  this  is 
not  usually  the  impression  conveyed  to  the  new  asTSphercehf000r 
boy  by  his  future  playmates.     It  is  not  desirable  growth  of  seif- 
that  it  should.     For  it  is  to  the  School  we  look  jSSt^ 
to  bring  to  the  front  an  element  of  self-help, 
competition,  and  emulation,  which  the  Family  can  but  poorly 
provide.       The   illusions   of  innocent  self-conceit,  which  the 
pardonable  partialities   of  home   so   readily  feed,  have   little 
mercy  shown  to  them  here.     And  though  the  rough  scrambles 
of  competition  may  reck  little  of  justice  or  desert,  they  grow 
their  own  crop  of  hardy  qualities,  courage,  self-reliance,  respect 
for  one's   fellows,  and  the   spirit   in  which  to  take  rebuff  or 
defeat.     The  one  needful  qualification  is  that  the  competitive 
spirit  be  not  suffered  to  kill  the  motives  that  are 
more  direct.     In  any  valuation  of  the  competitive  tive  spirit*  Mts 


spirit,  it  is  imperative  to  bear  in  mind  that  after 
all  there  is  little  real  connection  between  the 
desire  to  beat  a  rival  and  the  doing  of  a  duty.  We  may  go 
further  and  add  that  not  only  is  the  competitive  motive  thus 
collateral  :  it  has  also,  despite  all  its  superficial  effectiveness,  a 
fatal  weakness.  For  it  is  the  direct  love  of  the  thing  to  be 
done  that  really  wears  best,  because  it  can  face  the  day  when 
these  collateral  incitements  of  rivalry  may  be  no  longer  forth- 
coming. Whereas  the  competitive  spirit  in  all  its  forms  is 
tainted  with  the  blight  that  it  stakes  persistence  in  a  given  line 
of  action  upon  a  stimulus  that  is  external  to  the  end  of  the 

himself  to  praise  them  ;  and  if  they  have  wronged  him  and  he  is  angry, 
he  pacifies  his  anger  and  is  reconciled,  and  compels  himself  to  love  and 
praise  his  own  flesh  and  blood."  (Jowett's  trans.) 


no  The  School 

action  itself.  This  however  is  but  a  qualification.  It  leaves 
untouched  the  fact  that,  in  a  society  like  our  own,  industrial 
and  commercial  to  the  core,  the  competitive  spirit  will  have 
heavy  drafts  made  upon  it  in  after  life.  And,  this  being  so,  we 
can  ill  afford  to  suppress,  even  were  this  in  our  power,  these 
strenuous  rivalries  of  schoolroom  and  playground. 

It  is  a  further  advantage  of  the  School  that,  as  soon  as  they 
cross  its  threshold,  our  small  men  begin  to  pass 
furnfshes^he  under  the  heavy  yoke  of  Public  Opinion.  This 
first  experi-  the  Family  cannot  supply.  For  'effective  public 
o^n7orfandhC  opinion  there  must  obviously  be  an  effective 
the  reality  of  public  -  and  as  everyone  knows,  this  is  not  long 

the  social  '.  .       ./.  '  ,.          , 

judgment.  of  constituting  itself  in  any  considerable  school. 

There  are  all  the  needful  elements  :  the  unwritten 
traditional  code  with  its  unwritten  enactments  as  to  cowardice, 
tale- bearing,  sneaking,  lying,  "  good  form,"  or  as  to  the  points 
wherein  authority  is  to  be  respected  and  the  points  wherein  it 
is  to  be  outwitted.  And  behind  the  code  there  are  its  "  sanc- 
tions," in  whose  enforcement  this  little  republic  knows  nothing 
of  the  hesitancies  and  compunctions  which  sometimes  impede 
the  administration  of  the  larger  and  more  responsible  justice. 
Hence  it  comes  that  even  those  who  may  learn  little  else  will 
not  fail  to  learn  at  school  the  reality  of  the  social  judgment. 
Here  too  are  the  beginnings  of  the  great  twin  forces  of 
comradeship  and  leadership.  This  one  stands 

It  likewise 

develops  the  out  and  leads.  By  native  gift,  by  experimented 
o^Comrade CeS  prowess,  he  is  the  intrepid  and  resourceful  initia- 
ship  and  tor  and  organiser  of  projects,  pastimes,  mischiefs ; 

Leadership.  ^  ^  ^^  rank  and  fil^  in  instinctive  tt  hero_ 

worship,"  fall  into  line  and  follow  with  the  loyalty  to  which  it 
is  a  point  of  honour  to  stick  to  comrades  through  thick  and 
thin.  Need  it  be  added  that  in  most  schools  there  is  the 
further  hero-worship,  verging  upon  apotheosis,  of  the  master. 
For  though  it  is  a  common  experience  that  it  is  only  in  the 


The  School  in 

retrospects  of  later  days  that  we  come  to  do  justice  to  what  our 
schoolmasters  have  done  for  us,  we  do  not  wait  till  then  to 
clothe  them  in  attributes,  sometimes  mythical,  sometimes 
happily  not  mythical,  in  which  boyish  enthusiasms  insist  upon 
finding  the  ideal  objects  of  their  generous  admirations. 

Here  indeed  enters  one  of  those  responsibilities  of  the 
schoolmaster  which  is  not  to  be  evaded.     For 

The  peculiar 

though  one  may  hope  that  there  are  few  teachers   moral  re- 


of  youth  who  self-consciously  erect  themselves 
into  examples,  this  cannot  alter  the  fact  that  as 
examples  they  will  certainly  be  regarded.  Not  perhaps  because 
of  what  they  say,  or  even  what  they  do,  when  the  eyes  of  their 
youthful  constituents  are  upon  them  in  official  hours  and 
duties,  but  because  of  what  they  really  care  for  in  their 
habitual  walk  and  conversation.  It  is  their  valuations,  even 
when  they  remain  unspoken,  that  tell  ;  and  they  tell  with  a 
contagious  and  penetrating  force.  There  is  no  escaping  this, 
and  if  anyone  doubts  it,  we  need  only  to  refer  him  to  Socrates, 
who  of  all  men  strive  to  teach  as  one  not  having  authority  and 
succeeded  thereby,  against  his  will,  in  exalting  himself  all  the 
more  in  the  eyes  of  disciples  who  vied  with  one  another  in 
walking  in  the  Socratic  way  of  life.  The  work  of  the  teacher, 
it  has  been  said,  is  only  scaffolding.  It  is  not  his  prime 
concern  to  be  a  paragon,  or  to  hypnotise  his  charges  into  a 
blind  following  of  his  example,  but  to  prepare  them  for  the 
coming  of  the  day  when  he  has  to  stand  aside,  and  they  have, 
intellectually  and  morally,  to  stand  or  fall  in  their  own  strength. 
In  this  sense  he  works  for  his  own  self-effacement.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  he  can  therefore  efface  himself  from  the 
first.  He  cannot.  And  if  he  tries,  it  will  only  be  to  make 
the  discovery,  later  or  sooner,  that  all  the  instincts  of  youthful 
imitation  and  the  ineradicable  principle  of  example  are  fighting 
on  the  other  side.1 

1  The  late  Professor  Laurie,  who  knew  the  teacher  well,  does  not 


112  Friendship 

Beyond  all  this  there  are  certain  quite  specific  points  where 

the  school  can  act  with  peculiar   effectiveness. 

sons  which  the     It  is  a  kind  of  revelation  of  the  importance  of 

School  can  punctuality  and  order,  of  the  meaning  and  value 

enforce.  . 

of  organization,  of  the  existence  of  an  authority 
which,  though  it  does  not  rest  upon  compulsion,  will  not 
hesitate  to  compel,  and  of  the  fact,  which  dawns  somewhat 
gradually  upon  the  youthful  mind,  that  work,  even  when 
uncongenial,  is  a  thing  to  be  expected  and  exacted  of  the 
sons  of  men. 

We  might  raise  a  further  question  here.     Everyone  is  agreed 

that  the  school  ought  to  teach  virtue  :  not  every- 

one  as  to  the  extent  to  which  it  ought  to  teach 
the  school  about  virtue.  For  of  course  morality  is  one 

ab?ut  v°rtueC?h      thing — a  thing  of  trained  instincts,  good  habits, 

right  feelings,  clear  and  upright  purposes,  sound 
judgment :  instruction  in  morality  is  quite  another.  And  it 
must  needs  be  a  problem  how  far  in  a  school  it  is  profitable  to 
enter  upon  the  latter.  This  however  is  a  question  which  may 
perhaps  be  left  to  answer  itself  when  we  have  discussed  in  the 
sequel  the  educative  value  of  Precept1, 


Friendship 

When  we  pass  to  the  influence  of  friendship,  we  are  at 
Friendshi         once  met  by  the  difficulty  that  the  friendships 
resists  dicta-        which  are  ethically  of  most  importance  are  pre- 
cisely those  that  are  least  within  control.      Of 
all  human  relationships   this  is  perhaps  the  one  which  most 

hesitate   to    lay   upon  him   the   formidable   responsibility   of  being   the 
incarnation  of  Moral  Law.      Cf.   Institutes  of  Education. 

1  Cf.  pp.  183,  207,  221.     The  value  of  School  for  discipline  of  character 
is  well  discussed  by  Mr.  Barnett  in  his  Common  Sense  in  Education,  c.  ii. 


Friendship  113 

jealously  resists  dictation.  For  the  tie  cannot  be  made :  it 
must  grow.  Phase  must  have  time  to  follow  phase,  as  ac- 
quaintanceship becomes  interest;  interest,  liking;  liking, 
settled  attachment. 

Some  encouragement  may  however  be  drawn  from  the  fact 
that  friendships  spring  up  upon  grounds  that  are  so  many 
and  so  diverse.  This  one  makes  a  friend  to  be  a  hero- 
worshipper  :  that  one,  to  have  a  hero-worshipper.  With  an- 
other pair  the  bond  may  be  a  common  past,  that  "  first  secret 
of  happy  association,"  and  one  that  often  strangely  holds 
together  in  later  years  those  who  have  ceased  to  have  much 
else  in  common.  With  others  still  the  initial  tie  may  be 
simple  companionship  in  some  common  cause,  project,  ad- 
venture, taste,  study,  or  sport. 

It  is  these  last  that  offer  possibilities  for  guidance.  For 
though  a  parent  may  discreetly  put  far  from  Guidance  in 
him  the  very  semblance  of  dictation,  he  need  formation  of 
by  no  means  remain  passive  and  powerless. 
He  can  at  very  least  strive  to  plan  the  family  life  so  that 
his  children  may  avoid  alike  that  undiscriminating  com- 
panionship which  exposes  the  friendly  instincts  of  the  young 
to  too  great  risk  of  misplaced  choice,  and  that  seclusion 
of  life  which  is  apt  to  leave  these  instincts  perilously  un- 
discriminating by  denying  them  sufficient  variety  to  choose 
from.  He  can  do  more  still  by  the  steady  encouragement 
of  all  sound  tastes  and  recreations  in  which  friendly  association 
is  possible.  These,  it  may  be  granted,  will  be  but  a  partial 
security.  They  will  certainly  be  no  panacea  against  friend- 
ships that  are  foolish  and  ill-assorted.  And  indeed  one  of  the 
lessons  that  parents  have  to  learn  from  children  is  a  wise 
toleration  of  the  undiscriminating  attachments  and  odd  hero- 
worships  through  which  all  sociable  young  souls  have  to 
pass.  But  if  these  friendships  of  whim  and  caprice  are 
duly  to  be  checked,  it  will  not  be  by  wise  saws  and  warning 


1 14  Friendship 

injunctions  upon  the  need  of  carefulness  in  forming  friends. 
Better  than  all  such  is  a  single  strong  and  wholesome  interest, 
be  it  literary,  artistic,  or  practical,  round  which,  as  a  rallying 
point  for  kindred  spirits,  companions  may  meet  and  learn 
the  secret  of  comradeship. 

It  is   needless,   in   presence  of  the   many  truisms   about 
what  friend      friendship,  to  dilate  upon  what  our  friends  can 
can  do  for  do  for   us.      It  is  abundantly  recognised   that 

they  are  the  confidants  who  save  us  from  becom- 
ing, in  Bacon's  somewhat  violent  metaphor,  "the  cannibals 
of  our  own  hearts1":  that  they  are  the  partners  and  coun- 
sellors of  our  perplexities  and  deliberations,  from  whom 
we  can  bear  to  hear  (though  perhaps  not  too  often  or 
at  too  great  length)  of  our  faults  and  foibles ;  that  they  are 
the  comrades  whose  tried  and  welcome  presence  in  all  enter- 
prises, from  boyish  adventure  to  service  of  Church  or  State, 
not  only  divides  our  difficulties  and  cares,  but  often  comes 
near  to  dispelling  them  together.  And  though  Aristotle  does 
well  to  warn  us  that  absence  dissolves  friendship,  it  is  happily 
none  the  less  true  that  friend  may  powerfully  influence  friend 
though  the  two  be  by  no  means  constant  associates.  Even 
far  removal  in  place,  or  in  occupation,  or  in  fortunes,  cannot 
arrest  influence.  For  once  any  man  has  true  friends,  he  never 
again  frames  his  decisions,  even  those  that  are  most  secret, 
as  if  he  were  alone  in  the  world.  He  frames  them  habitually 
in  the  imagined  company  of  his  friends.  In  their  visionary 
presence  he  thinks  and  acts ;  and  by  them,  as  visionary  tri- 
bunal, he  feels  himself,  even  in  his  unspoken  intentions  and 
inmost  feelings,  to  be  judged.  In  this  aspect  friendship  may 
become  a  supreme  force  both  to  encourage  and  restrain. 
For  it  is  not  simply  what  our  friends  expect  of  us  that  is  the 
vital  matter  here.  They  are  often  more  tolerant  of  our  failings 

1  Essay  on  Friendship. 


Friendship  115 

than  is  perhaps  good  for  us.  It  is  what  in  our  best  moments 
we  believe  that  they  expect  of  us.  For  it  is  then  that  they 
become  to  us,  not  of  their  own  choice  but  of  ours,  a  kind 
of  second  conscience,  in  whose  presence  our  weaknesses  and 
backslidings  become  "  that  worst  kind  of  sacrilege  that  tears 
down  the  invisible  altar  of  trust1." 

Nor  may  it  be  forgotten  that  friendship  is  one  of  the  ways 
by  which  we   may  pass  out  from   the   private      Friendship 
to  the  public  affections.      It  shews  how  strong  and  the  public 
may  be  the   ties  that  grapple   us  to   those  to   affections- 
whom  we  are   bound   neither   by  kinship  nor   early  associa- 
tion.    For  good  friends  are  not  good  haters,  except  in  the 
sense  that   they  are  capable  of  hatreds   to  which  the  cold- 
blooded and  the  unsociable  are  strangers.     Their  sympathies 
are   not  a   fixed    quantity   that    exhausts    itself  within    their 
own   small   circle.       Contrariwise.       For    in    all    hearts   with 
any  generous   instincts,  friendship   warms   and   quickens   the 
more   distant    relationships,   and    checks    the   cynicism    that 
corrodes  the  wider   ties.     Not  that  it  is  impossible  for   the 
civic  tie  to  be  weak  or  even  non-existent  where  the  friendly 
bond  is  strong.     The  Epicurean  brotherhood  of  the  ancient 
world  is  an  instance  for  all  time  how  friends,  associated  on 
the  basis  of  philosophic  or  other  culture,  may  sit  loose  to 
the  wider   practical   interests  without   seeming   to  miss   their 
absence.     But  it  4s  precisely  upon  this  point  that  they,  and 
all  who  in  the  larger  or  the  lesser  scale  follow  in  their  path, 
lie  open  to  criticism.     For  it  is  not  the  highest  tribute  to  our 
friends   to   remember  with   gratitude   how   security   in    their 
affection  and  respect  can  fortify  us  against  the  indifference  of 
the  world,  or  strengthen  us  in  our  indifference  to  it.     The 
greater  service  is  that  by  their  comradeship,  and      Comradeghi 
by  what  they  expect  of  us,  they  render  us  the  and  citizen- 
more   capable   of   wider   civic    interests   which  shlp> 
1  George  Eliot  in  Middlemarch. 


n6  Friendship 

private  friendships  can  never  satisfy.  For  if  the  citizen  of  a 
free  state  is  to  act  with  effect  he  must  act  in  association ;  and 
it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  any  form  of  association  for  public 
ends,  from  the  village  club  to  the  political  party,  can  afford  to 
rest  upon  nothing  more  than  agreement  of  opinion  and  com- 
munity of  interest.  If  it  is  to  stand  against  attack,  dissension, 
discouragement  and  failure,  it  must  count  upon  that  tenacious 
loyalty  of  comrade  to  comrade,  which  seldom  ripens  except 
when  friendship  has  sown  the  seed. 


Livelihood  117 

CHAPTER  VI 
LIVELIHOOD 

BOYS  leave  school  to  enter  upon  the  longer  education  of 
later  years,  and  this  begins  for  most,  and  ends 
for  many,  in  the  pursuit  of  livelihood.     "  When   Livelihood 
a  man  has  a  competency,"  so  runs  the  maxim  of  bnn*s  ufs  in*° 

J  7  practical  rela- 

a  Greek  poet,  "  he  ought  to  begin  the  practice   tions  with  our 
of  virtue  "  —  "  Perhaps  sooner  "  is  the  dry  com-   ^u"  trial  and~ 
ment   of    Plato.1     And   in    an    industrial    and   commercial 
commercial  nation  like  England,  the  comment 
is  truer  than  the  maxim.     For  of  course  it  is  in  the  pursuit 
of  competency  that  we  both  develope  virtues  and  realise  the 
need  of  them. 

The  central  fact  that  concerns  us  here  is  that  when  a  youth 
begins  to  earn  his  living  he  comes  for  the  first  time  into  direct 
relation  to  the  industrial  organisation  of  his  country,  and  passes 
under  the  iron  yoke  of  that  Law  of  Division  of  Labour,  before 
which,  in  a  nation  of  workers,  the  vast  majority  of  us  must 
bow,  or  starve.  And  the  question  that  must  be  faced  is  the 
natural  one  as  to  whether  this  organisation  can  be  regarded 
and  welcomed  as  a  satisfactory  school  of  virtue. 

Now  of   course   the   Division   of   Labour   has    abundant 
economic  justification.      It   is   the   recognised 
condition  of  all  efficient   material   production. 


It  is  thereby  the  accepted  means  for  providing  has  its  iust»fi- 

,  .     ,       .  ,  .    ,  .       ,  ,    cations, 

the  economic  basis  upon  which  a  nation's  moral 
and  spiritual  life  is  built.     And  it  is  further  one  of  the  prime 
causes   of  national   unity,  inasmuch   as,   in   the   very  fact   of 
dividing  work,  it  knits   the  workers   together  in   the   strong 
bonds  of  mutual   dependence   and  helpfulness.     All  this  is 

1  Cf.  Republic,  ill.  407  A. 


1  1  8  Livelihood 

indubitable.  It  is  when  we  turn  to  ethical  considerations  that 
there  comes  a  doubt.  For  when  we  scrutinise  the  motives  in 
which  this  Division  of  Labour,  this  organism  of  Livelihood, 
has  had  its  origin,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  fact  that,  so 
far  as  human  design  is  concerned,  it  has  not 

yet  it  has  not 

been  devised  in     been  devised  in  the  interests  of  moral  develop- 


veiopment  of  lower  ends.  It  is  simply  a  contrivance,  mar- 
vellously evolved  in  the  long  course  of  national 
growth,  for  the  adequate  satisfaction  of  material  needs,  or,  as 
in  the  higher  forms  of  specialisation,  for  the  effective  transac- 
tion of  the  national  business  in  all  its  infinitely  ramified  detail. 
So  much  so  that  it  has  become  a  truism  to  say  that  it  recks 
little  of  the  individual  life,  and  indeed  that  it  advances  upon 
its  ends  over  the  sacrifice  of  the  workers  in  all  modes  whom  it 
enslaves  to  its  tasks.  "  Mental  mutilation  "  are  the  sufficiently 
emphatic  words  of  Adam  Smith  in  forecasting  the  baneful 
And  the  intellectual  effects  of  industrial  specialisation.1 

specialisation  Can  we  escape  the  fear  that  there  will  be  moral 
seemThostiie  mutilation  also,  when  the  one  condition  upon 
to  moral  which  a  man  can  earn  his  living  is  that  the  best 

cause*!*  treats  hours  of  his  day,  the  best  years  of  his  life,  are 
men  as  means  perforce  given  to  some  specialised  task-work, 

not  as  ends. 

meagre  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  potentialities 
as  a  moral  being?  It  is  not  wonderful  therefore  that  the 
imperious  necessities  of  livelihood  should  as  a  matter  of  fact 
come  to  many,  not  cheerfully  as  the  path  to  development, 
but  unwelcomely  as  the  cost,  sometimes  bitter  to  think  upon, 
at  which  the  opportunities  for  development  are  dearly  pur- 
chased. 

The  force  of  this  is  undeniable.     This  iron  law  of  speciali- 

sation  turns   men   into   means   for   the   realisation   of    ends, 

especially  of  industrial  ends,  which  are  not,  in  design  and 

inception,  moral.     And  in  a  society  like  our  own,  where  the 

1  Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  v.  c.  i.  p.  365,  Rogers'  ed. 


Livelihood  119 

struggle  for  livelihood  is  intense,  it  follows  of  necessity  that 
the  more  purely  moral  ends  are  again  and  again,  now  by  the 
exigencies  of  material  production,  now  by  the  urgencies  of 
other  social  work,  deposed  from  that  pre-eminence  which  they 
would  never  lose  were  the  social  organism  planned,  maintained, 
and  developed  in  the  interests  of  the  moral  life  of  its  members. 
Social  reformers,  stung  by  this  fact,  plan  and  work  for  a  better 
time,  and  they  may  perhaps  reasonably  hope  for  the  dawning 
of  a  day  when  Division  of  Labour  will  exact  a  less  merciless 
tribute.  But  as  social  organisation  is,  and  as  it  seems  likely 
long  to  continue,  there  remains  a  sharp  contradiction  between 
the  paltriness  of  the  specialised  vocation  that  is  the  path  to 
livelihood,  and  the  breadth  of  moral  development  of  which  the 
average  man  is  capable.  The  compulsory  activities  of  bread- 
winning,  in  short,  appear,  and  are  often  felt  to  be,  very  far  from 
an  ideal  school  of  character. 

Yet  happily  this  picture  has  another  side.     At  very  least, 
the  Division  of  Labour  is  a  condition   under 
which  we  can  effectively  get  to  work.     It  enables   JJjSJSwr- 
us   to   act :   and   as   our  wisest  from  Aristotle  «ver» »« certain 

....  j     ,  i  .  aspects  is  a 

onwards  have  taught,  it  is  in  and  through  action,   condition  of 
and  not  by  hopes,  wishes,  or  barren  projects,   JJJ^1  develop" 
that  character  is  made.     It  is  something  more 
that  whatever  makes  for  the  unity  of  society  must  needs  have 
far-reaching  ethical  results.     This  is  what  Division  of  Labour 
admittedly  does.     It  may  be  a  rough  and  unkindly  teacher, 
but  the  lesson  is  learnt.     For  through  it,  we  first   come   to 
realise   that,  with  our  consent  or  without  it,  we  must  needs 
stand  to  our  fellows  in  relations  of  mutual  dependence.     As 
Adam  Smith  has  it :  "  while  our  whole  life  is  scarce  sufficient  to 
gain  the  friendship  of  a  few  persons,  man  stands  at  all  times  in 
need  of  the  co-operation  and  assistance  of  great  multitudes." J 
It  is  not  of  this  that  men  will  think  first  of  all  when  they  begin 
to  earn  their  bread.     They  will  think  first  of  all,  and  no  one 
i  Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  I.  c.  ii 


I2O  Livelihood 

will  blame  them  for  it,  of  day  and  way  for  themselves  and  for 
those  who  are  dependent  on  them.  Yet  there  is  nothing  to 
prevent  even  the  drudge,  if  only  he  can  summon  enough 
philosophy  to  his  aid,  from  reflecting  that,  even  when  he  is  fight- 
ing simply  for  honest  independence,  he  is  as  mere  matter  of  fact 
fulfilling  a  social  function  of  the  first  magnitude  —  none  other 
than  that  of  taking  his  place  in  the  ranks  of  industry  in  con- 
serving and  increasing  those  national  resources  which,  but  for 
Division  of  Labour,  would  speedily  perish  before  the  unresting 
forces  of  Consumption.1 

It  is  more  important  still  to  remember  that  it  is  in  the 

school  of  compulsory  labour,  and  nowhere  else, 

that  the  most  of  us  come  effectually  to  know  the 
Jj^ooi  of  moral  stern)  but  never  really  hostile  face  of  Obligation  ; 

as  the  idler,  who  being  "his  own  master"  is 
seldom  his  own  task-master,  can  never  really  know  it.  We  are 
apt  to  fall  into  illusion  here.  We  sometimes  picture  the  youth 
going  forth  into  life  with  all  the  world  before  him.  And  it  is 
Are  we  free  true>  esPecia^7  in  these  days  when  Status 2  has 
to  choose  our  all  along  the  line  been  giving  ground  before 

Choice,  that  he  has  a  freedom  of  choice  of 
which  his  forefathers  could  not  have  dreamed.  Cannot  even 
the  humblest,  in  an  age  of  democratic  freedom,  choose  his 
vocation,  his  place  of  abode,  his  master,  his  friends,  his  rulers, 
his  church?  And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  this  "choice"  is  on  a 
closer  view  narrowly  conditioned.  It  is  limited  by  parental 
ignorance  or  apathy,  by  inherited  rank  and  station,  by  want  of 
education,  by  lack  of  opportunity,  by  accident,  by  a  hundred 
causes  not  really  within  the  individual's  own  control.  And  even 
where  it  is  comparatively  free,  the  chooser,  once  the  die  is  cast, 

1  The  phrase  "  accumulation  of  wealth  "  is  apt  to  conceal  the  extent  to 
which  wealth  is  undergoing  perpetual  reproduction  at  the  hands  of  industry 
and  enterprise. 

2  "Status"  is  that  condition  of  Society  in  which  a  man's  career  is 
determined  for  him  by  the  social  system  into  which  he  is  born. 


Livelihood  121 

speedily  finds  himself  in  the  grasp  of  the  Division  of  Labour, 
which  forbids  to  most  a  second  choice  on  penalty  of  ineffectu- 
ality  and  failure.  For  there  remains  perennial  truth  in  that 
noble  image  of  Plato.1  Behind  the  Fates  that  spin  the 
destinies  of  men  sits  the  august  figure  of  Necessity.  Upon 
her  knees  the  spindle  turns.  And  he  who  would  fitly  act  his 
part  must  give  up  the  illusion  that  he  can  spin  his  destiny 
just  as  it  may  chance  to  please  him.  Even  under  a  social 
system  more  ideal  far  than  that  we  live  in,  it  must  remain  but 
one  part  of  duty  that  consists  in  the  exercise  of  "  free  choice," 
because  the  other  part  must  lie  in  the  acceptance  of  inexorable 
limitations. 

Rightly  regarded  this  need  be  no  evil.     Practical  compul- 
sion to  work  within  limits  neither  of  our  making 

It  is  the 

nor  of  our  unmaking,  need  not  by  any  means  be  nature  of  the 
bondage.     For  moral  bondage  is  to  be  discrimi-  U^^0^ 
nated  from  moral  freedom,  not  by  the  presence  we  work  that 
or  absence   of  limitations,  but   by  finding   an  whether  we  be 
answer   to   two  questions  :  —  the  first,  what  in  morally  free  or 
origin  and  nature  are  the  limitations  thus  inevi- 
table;   the  second,  what  manner  of  life  within  these  remains 
possible  for  the  average  man. 

On  the  first  of  these  questions   it   is   not  possible,  in  a 
practical  enquiry  like  this,  to  dwell.     It  would      Though  not 

manifestly  lead    too  far  into   social   and   even  devised  as  a 

metaphysical   analysis.       It   has   been    already  virtue,  the 

remarked  that  there  are  certain  ethical,  as  well   economic  or- 
ganism may 
as  economic,  justifications  for  the  organism  of  subserve 

Livelihood  with  its  supreme  law  of  Division  of  moral  ends- 
Labour.  And  to  this  we  may  add  the  suggestion  that,  though 
this  organism  has  certainly  not  been  deliberately  devised  as  a 
school  of  virtue,  it  may  nevertheless,  in  the  large  scheme  of 
social  evolution,  be  more  in  harmony  with  moral  progress  than 
might  at  first  sight  appear.  The  ends  which  industrial  and 
1  Republic^  Bk.  x.  pp.  616 — 17. 


122  Livelihood 

commercial  institutions  subserve  are  never  to  be  circumscribed 
by  the  range  of  motive  that  called  them  into  being. 

It  must,  however,  here  suffice  to  turn  to  the  second  point, 

with  the  reminder  that  it  is  very  easy,  in  im- 

And  even  patience   with   the   thraldom   of  specialisation, 

under  adverse          * 

conditions  to   forget   the   real   worth   and   fulness   of  the 

Livelihood  moral  life  which  even  drudgery  cannot  preclude, 

may  yield  an  There  is  a.  passage  in  which  Carlyle  tells  us 
devdopmTntral  that  Madame  de  Stael  found  that  the  place  of 
all  places  ever  known  to  her  she  had  enjoyed 
the  most  freedom  in  was  the  Bastille.1  We  need  not  press 
this  rhetoric  to  definition.  It  will  serve  at  any  rate  to  carry 
two  matters  of  fact  which  are  as  nearly  incontrovertible  as 
may  be.  One  is  that,  even  in  the  obscure  service  of  men 
and  organisations  who  may  reck  little  of  the  individual  moral 
development  of  their  servants,  there  are  large  opportunities 
for  the  realisation  of  all  the  cardinal  virtues  of  the  life  of 
livelihood.  Is  there  not  room  for  independence,  integrity, 
thrift,  endurance,  generosity?  If  we  deplore  the  usurpation 
of  livelihood  upon  life,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  livelihood 
has  its  own  strong  virtues,  second  to  none.  The  other 
point  is  that  whatever  we  may  think  of  our  limits,  it  is  by 
the  kind  of  life  that  is  within  them  possible  that  we  can  best 
judge  how  far  they  present  a  real,  or  only  an  apparent,  obstacle 
to  the  growth  of  character.  Madame  de  Stael  appears  to  have 
found  "liberty"  in  the  Bastille.  Be  this  fact  or,  figure,  it 
remains  certain  that  as  often  as  we  see  a  character  that  has 
come  out  victorious  in  this  so  common,  yet  so  sifting,  struggle 
for  livelihood,  the  attitude  that  least  befits  us  in  its  presence  is 
patronage  or  commiseration.  We  may  wish,  for  this  is  natural, 
that  the  sphere  of  action  had  been  less  obstructed,  and  we  may 

1  Letters  to  Lockhart,  Lockharfs  Life,  vol.  II.  p.  237  :  "  Servitude  is 
a  blessing  and  a  great  liberty,  the  greatest  can  be  given  a  man.  So  the 
shrewd  little  de  Stael,  on  reconsidering  and  computing  it,  found  that  the 
place  of  all  places,  etc." 


Livelihood  123 

wonder  what  such  strength  of  character  might  have  done  and 
been  under  more  favouring  circumstance.  Yet  the  result  is 
there,  intrinsically  valuable,  and  a  living  proof  that  even  narrow 
limitations  may  be  no  moral  disability,  if  indeed,  as  the  Stoics 
and  as  even  the  practical  Aristotle  taught,  they  be  not  the 
opportunities  for  a  higher  achievement. 

If  such  results  are  within  the  resources  of  human  nature 
where  limitations   are  peculiarly  grinding  and 

Moral  ad- 

obstructive,   a  fortiori   we   may   believe    them  vance  may 
possible  of  the  average  lot.     Be  the  defects  of  ^^"f  e" 
Society  as  a  school  of  virtue  what  they  may,  economic 
it  can  hardly  be  denied,  in  the  light  of  what  reform' 
many  a  man  has  actually  done,  that  human  nature  is  strong 
enough  to  turn  to  moral  account  social  conditions  which  may 
still  be  far  short  of  the  ideal.     It  is  fortunate  that  our  charac- 
ters have  not  to  wait  for  their  development  till  economical  or 
political   reformers   have   transmuted   society   into    a   perfect 
school  of  virtue. 

It  is  however  time  to  recall  the  fact  that,  though  it  is  in  the 
pursuit    of  Livelihood   that    the   vast   majority 
mainly  make  or  mar  their  characters,  this  is  be^ausTcuti!0 
not  the  only  sphere   available.     There  are  in  zenship  and 

.   ,  ,  i          r      i  the  Religious 

especial   two    other   resources,    each   of  them 


abundantly  fruitful.     The  one  of  them  is  that  further 

spheres. 

active  participation  in  the  life  of  citizenship  which 
Democracy  practically  puts  within  the  reach  of  all  ;  the  other, 
membership  of  one  or  other  of  those  religious  societies,  which 
have  always  made  it  their  peculiar  glory  that  even  the  most 
obscure  and  obstructed  of  mortals  can  find  within  them  a 
deeper  and  more  satisfying  life  than  any  secular  activities  can 
even  at  their  best  afford. 


124  Citizenship 

CHAPTER  VII 

CITIZENSHIP 


WHEN  we  pass  from  the  life  of  Livelihood  to  the  activities 

of  Citizenship,  there  is  of  course  a  difference. 

citizenship  en-      The  latter,  with  few  exceptions  (the  payment  of 


e  Rates  and  Taxes  for  example)  ,  are  neither  corn- 

sphere  of  duty.  VI         i. 

pulsory   nor   indispensable.     Even    under   De- 

mocracy, as  before  its  advent,  many  a  man  has  realised  a 
sterling  character  without  lifting  his  eyes  beyond  the  ordi- 
nary charities  of  home,  neighbourhood,  and  craft.  Yet  it  is 
one  of  the  good  things  of  days  democratic  that  they  open  up 
a  sphere  for  the  manly  and  man-making  duties  of  local  and 
imperial  citizenship. 

This  tells  in  more  ways  than  one.     As  one  result,  it  makes 
the   preparation   of  the  citizen   for   his   duties 

And  thereby 

necessitates  a  necessity.  In  part  this  is  a  preparation  in 
ti!TnPJfethea~  knowledge,  some  knowledge  at  least  of  his 
citizen  for  his  country's  history  and  laws,  its  political  insti- 
tutions and  economic  system.  And  the  need  for 
this  will  be  intensified  should  the  days  come  —  as  the  socialists 
assure  us  they  are  coming  —  when  self-government  in  industry 
and  commerce  will  be  added  to  self-government  in  politics. 
For  then  will  come  the  demand  not  only  for  educated  work- 
men, but,  far  beyond  present  supply,  for  enlightened  leaders 
of  workmen.  Thus  much  we  must  look  for,  if  government 
by  democracy  is  not  to  end  ignobly  in  the  fiascoes  of  mis- 
government  by  ignorance. 

But  it  is  more  urgent  still  that  there  should  be  prepa- 
ration in  morality.  Knowledge  alone,  even  if  popularised 
to  infinity,  will  not  suffice  here.  It  must  strike  alliance  with 


Citizenship  125 

those  qualities  of  character  without  which  it  may  be  heedless 
or  reckless  of  the  common  good.     Hence  it  is 
that  Democracy  adds  a  new  ethical,  as  well  as   in 
political,  significance  to  the  home,  the  school,    ?f  paramount 

'     importance. 

the  industrial  organization,  the  religious  society. 
For  it  is  to  these  it  must  look  for  the  nurture  of  its  citizens 
to  be,  so  that  to  knowledge  they  may  add  love  of  country, 
and  to  love  of  country  active  public  spirit,  and  to  public 
spirit  loyalty  to  comrades  and  leaders,  and  to  loyalty  the 
integrity  that  abhors  corruption.  Telling  may  do  something 
here  :  for  the  family,  still  more  the  school,  may  tell  of  the 
national  examples  of  heroism  and  devotion,  and  of  the  mov- 
ing struggles  and  victories  of  war  and  peace  that  are  a  coun- 
try's heritage ;  or  they  may  throw  the  enkindling  lights  of 
legend  and  romance  upon  historic  cities,  memorable  battle- 
fields, mouldering  keeps,  or  storied  countrysides.  But  telling 
is  here  the  lesser  part,  and  Family  and  School  best  serve  the 
State  in  laying  securely  the  foundations  of  the  energetic,  law- 
abiding,  and  devoted  character. 

Yet  all  this  is  but  the  beginning.     For  the  fuller  growth 
of  the  political  virtues  we  must  look  to  political 
life  itself.     We  stumble  here  upon  the  old  dis-   active  citizen- 
covery.     It  is  by  doing  craftsman's  work  that   auJSedeveU^e 
men  learn  to  become  craftsmen,  and  it  is  by  the  political 
active  citizenship  that  they  learn  truly  to  be   virt 
citizens.     There  is  no  other  way.     Hence  indeed  the  unreason 
of  the  contention  that  no  man  is  entitled  to  the   enjoyment 
of  political   rights,   till   he   is   proved   fit    to    exercise    them. 
It   is   an   impossible   requirement.      Before    he    has    political 
rights,  no  man's  fitness  for  them  can  be  proved.     Because, 
though    there    are    of   course    various    tests,    educational    or 
economic,  which  may  be  accepted  as  securities,  there  is  but 
one  genuine  proof  of  fitness  —  the  experimental  proof  that 
shows  how   men   use   their  rights  after  they  have  got  them. 
Manifestly  there  is  room  enough  here  for  political  risk:    it 


126  Citizenship 

must  be  so  If  it  be  the  behaviour  of  the  citizen  after  enfran- 
chisement,  and  not  the  arguments  of  his  friends  before  it, 
that  is  the  final  justification  of  the  step  taken.  And  it  is  for 
the  political  reformer  and  statesman  to  set  this  risk  against 
the  probabilities  of  advantage.  Meanwhile  however  the  moral 
reformer  may  be  permitted  the  reflection  that,  even  if  the  raw 
recruit  of  Democracy  is  not  likely  to  be  wholly  a  benefactor 
to  his  country  at  the  polling-booth,  he  can  always,  if  he 
be  honest,  be  a  benefactor  to  himself.  He 
argument  for  can  gam  indubitably  in  widened  and  impersonal 
a  wide  interests,  such  as  the  narrow  and  monotonous 

franchise.  . 

round  of  private  duties  can  never  give ;  and  he 
can  seize  the  opportunity  for  developing  the  political  virtues, 
wln^h  are  made  not  otherwise  than  by  strenuous  participation 
in  actual  political  life.  This  is  the  ethical  argument  for  a 
wide  franchise.  It  must  not  of  course  be  pressed  too  far; 
and  manifestly  no  one  who  loves  his  country  need  consent 
to  turn  it  into  a  whetstone  upon  which,  at  possibly  ruinous 
political  sacrifices,  incapacity  may  blunder  into  a  modicum 
of  political  virtue.  Yet  it  is,  per  contra,  well  to  remember 
that,  after  all,  our  country  does  not  exist  simply  to  furnish 
forth  a  model  of  political  perfection,  unless  indeed,  with  Plato 
and  Aristotle  to  help  us,  we  construe  political  perfection  as 
including  in  it,  as  main  element,  the  fullest  development  of 
the  men  and  women  who  ultimately  are  the  State. 

This  —  is  it  needful  to  say  it?  —  does  not  mean  that  men 
are  drawn  to  civic  life  by  the  motive  of  im- 

The  moral  .  '* 

results  are  proving  their  moral  characters.      Happily  not. 

vakTabie  b?-8  They  of  course  vote>  canvass,  organise,  agitate, 
cause  not  di-  and  so  on,  for  much  less  lofty  reasons  —  because 

rectly  sought.         ^y  ^Q  .^  ^  ^ecause  ^  cjyjc  jmpulse  js  upon 

them,  or  because  they  do  not  wish  to  be  beaten  by  the  other 
side,  or  governed  by  men  worse  than  themselves,  perhaps  for 
no  other  higher  reason  than  that  they  cannot  be  idle  when 
excitement  is  in  the  air.  None  the  less,  by  the  exceeding 


Citizenship  127 

cunning  of  the  national  Destiny,  they  usually  gain  far  more 
than  they  consciously  seek;  inasmuch  as,  day  by  day,  while 
thinking  only  of  politics  and  parties,  committees  or  election 
speeches,  they  may  all  unconsciously  be  forming  the  political 
virtues. 

It   is   an  inevitably  precarious   discipline.     Where   party 
organisation  is  strong   and   party  feeling   runs      The  life  of 
high,  it  is  the  condition  of  all  effective  action  citizenship 
that  the  partisan  should  develope  that  loyalty  Sj^SST'1 
which  can  endure  much  self-suppression  in  lesser  dangers  to 

.  ,        morality,  such 

things  for  the  sake  of  the  larger  common  ends.   as  servility  to 
Yet  this  must  be  united  with  the  nerve  to  break   Party» 
with  party  and  cast  party  allegiance  to  the  winds,  in  obedience 
to  the  leading  of  a  patriotism  wider  than  party.      Is  it  not 
of  the  very  elements   of  politics,  that   the   consistency  that 
clings  to  party  as  the  effective  instrument  for  the  enactment 
of  political  convictions,  must  reckon  with  that  higher  con- 
sistency, which  welcomes  light  even  from  political  opponents, 
and  is  ready  to  face  the  fact  that  even  a  cherished  party  may 
cease  to  furnish  the  fittest  expression  of  political  convictions? 
So,  again,  where  power  rests  with  the  majority.   or  subser. 
It  is  much  to  learn  to  defer  to  majorities,  it  is   viency  to 
an  essential  lesson  in  a  democratic  state  ;  but  it   majo    ies' 
is  even  more  to  preserve  inviolate  that  freedom  of  individual 
judgment  which,  if  need  be,  will  withstand  the  majority  to 
the  face,  in  the  conviction  that,  in  the  absence  of  this,  the 
verdict  of  majorities  will  lose  all  its  value,  and   degenerate 
into   verdict   by   count   of  worthless   heads.     It   is   the  very 
last  tribute  to  offer  to  a  majority  to  bow  before  it  as  a  fate, 
and  to  forget  that   it  is   fallible.1     Nor  need   it  be  forgotten 
that  the  sphere  for  the  political  virtues  may,  especially  when 
School  and  Family  fail  to  do  their  duty,  become  the  sphere 
for  the   political  vices.     For   obviously  a  wide 
franchise  offers  enlarged  area  for  charlatanry  in 
the  leader,  and  gullibility,  possibly   corruption,  in  those  who 
1  Cf.  Ethics  of  Citizenship,  p.  74,  4th  ed. 


128  The  Religious  Organisation 

follow.    And  far  short  of  this,  political  life,  not  being  organised 
primarily  for  moral  ends,  may  easily  beget  a 

of  sefrltanty         certain  energetic  secularity  of  spirit,  and  a  hard- 
ness and  unscrupulosity  which  blunt  the  edge 

of  honour,  habituate  the  mind  to  compromise  and  trickery, 

and  forget  the  more  distant  ends  in  the  short-lived  triumphs 

of  faction. 

It  therefore  needs  its  counteractives.     And  these  are  found, 

It  therefore          m   Part   at   ^east>  m   tne    earty  nurture  of  Family 

needs  coun-         and  School.     But  they  may  also  be  sought  in 
what  may  become  the  most  powerful  of  all  — 
in  the  religious  organisation. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  RELIGIOUS  ORGANISATION 

THE  religious  organisation  is  not  on  the  same  plane  as 
The  Re-  other  moralising  agencies.     It  claims,  not  to  be 

Hgious  organi-  simply  one  agency  among  many,  but  pervasively 
to  leaveiTtiTe  to  influence  all  the  rest.  Amidst  all  the  dif- 
whoieofiife.  ferences,  which  fulness  of  life  and  of  strife 
have  developed,  the  smallest  sect  is,  in  this  claim,  at  one 
with  the  most  universal  Church.  The  claim  is  not  preten- 
tious. For  in  truth  the  kind  of  influence  which  even  the 
humblest  of  religious  organisations  must,  if  it  be  not  a  failure, 
exercise,  is  such  that  it  cannot  be  experienced  without  pro- 
foundly affecting  every  relation,  private  and  public,  in  which 
its  members  have  to  play  their  part. 

For  in  all  ages  religious  organisations  have  striven,  and 
if  they  be  alive  must  ever  strive,  to  bring  their  members  into 
personal  relation  to  a  larger  and  more  enduring  life.  The  fact 


The  Religions  Organisation  129 

lies  on   the   surface.      The    mere  outward    aspect  of   some 
religious  house  may  suggest  it  —  a  grey  cathedral      It  does  thig 
—  a  country  church  caught  sight  of  as  we  rush  by  bringing  its 

.      '       ..  ...  LIT"      members  into 

past  on  the  railway  —  a  poor  village  chapel.     In  personai  re- 
any  one  of  them,  the  meditative  eye  can  see  a  lation  to  a 

*  .  larger  and 

symbol,  homely  or  august,  of  that  persistent  more  enduring 
aspiration  to  grapple  human  life  to  what  is  life> 
eternal,  without  which,  as  one  of  our  wisest  has  said,  "no 
one  generation  could  link  with  the  other,  and  men  become 
little  better  than  the  flies  of  a  summer."  J  Emerson  has  told 
us  how,  on  that  memorable  visit  to  Carlyle  in  the  Dumfries- 
shire moors,  the  conversation  turned  upon  "the  subtle  links 
that  bind  ages  together,  and  how  every  event  affects  all  the 
future."  Carlyle  pointed  to  distant  Dunscore  village,  as  it 
lay  a  tiny  speck  in  a  wilderness  of  moorland  :  —  "  Christ  died 
on  the  tree  :  that  built  Dunscore  kirk  yonder :  that  brought 
you  and  me  together :  time  has  only  a  relative  existence." 2 
If  such  thoughts  be  stirred  by  the  mere  shell  and  symbol, 
are  they  not  likely  to  come,  with  more  penetrating  force,  from 
a  genuine  personal  contact  with  the  inward  spiritual  life  of 
a  Church?  Channels  are  not  lacking,  rites,  liturgies,  sacred 
song,  preaching,  teaching,  union  in  practical  work.  And  in- 
deed it  is  the  simple  fact  that  in  these  time-honoured  ways  — 
whatever  be  the  scepticisms  of  the  reading  and  the  thinking 
world  —  men  have  for  generations  come  to  feel  as  if  they  had 
passed  into  the  presence  of  realities  in  comparison  with  which 
"the  things  of  Time  have  only  a  relative  existence." 

It  is  here  in  fact  that  religious  organisations  can  bring  to 
the  most  unlettered  of  men  the  very  message     TheRe- 
which   philosophy  has   striven  to   offer  to  the  ^nsc°rnfftahnu; 
thinking  world.     "  Do  you  think,"  asks   Plato,   do  f°r  th« 

n    i  i      11    i  •  -n  many  what 

"  that  man  and  all  his  ways  will  appear  a  great  Philosophy 
thing  to  him  who  has  become  the  spectator  of  can  do  for 

the  few. 

1  Burke,  Thoughts  on  the  French  Revolution.     Works,  vol.  n.  p.  367. 

2  Froude's  Life  of  Carlyle,  vol.  II.  p.  358. 


130  The  Religious  Organisation 

all  time  and  all  existence?"1  And  is  it  not  the  central  doc- 
trine of  Spinoza  that,  to  him  who  has  once  learnt  to  look  on 
existence  "sub  quadam  specie  aeternitatis "  the  world,  and 
the  worldly  cares  and  ambitions  that  bulk  so  largely,  will 
shrink  to  their  proper  significance  —  or  insignificance.  A 
similar  result  may  be  wrought  upon  those  who  are  far  enough 
from  philosophy  by  all  genuine  religious  experience.  What- 
ever else  this  may  do,  or  fail  to  do,  it  must  needs  bring  into 
changeful  human  life  a  background,  which  will  profoundly 
alter  its  spiritual  perspective  and  its  estimates  of  value. 

Hence  it  is  that  religious  organisations  can  do  so  much  to 
bring  their   members   to  live   for   distant  and 

It  can,  fur- 

ther,  bring  its  unseen  ends.  All  great  organisations  can  do 
iTvTforrdistant  this>  Thev  have  an  intersecular  life  and  conti- 
and  unseen  nuity,  to  which  the  short  individual  span  can 
lay  no  claim  ;  and  they  point,  with  all  the  faith 
of  persistent  practical  effort,  to  far-off  results  of  corporate 
action,  with  the  thought  of  which  the  individual,  though  he 
knows  he  will  not  live  to  see  the  day,  can  forget  his  nothing- 
ness, chasten  his  impatience,  repress  his  despondencies,  steady 
his  energies,  and  feed  his  hopes.  But  there  are  reasons  why 
a  Church  can  do  this  best  of  all.  Like  the  others,  it  offers 
even  to  the  weakest,  membership  of  a  larger  whole ;  like  the 
others,  it  speaks  through  deeds  as  well  as  words  of  distant 
ends ;  like  the  others,  it  brings  to  bear  the  great  twin  forces 
of  comradeship  and  leadership.  But,  beyond  the  others,  it 
takes  the  more  spiritual  ends  for  its  peculiar  province.  It 
does  this  manifestly  when  it  stands  witness  for  a  Future  Life. 
And  whatever  speculative  difficulties  beset  this  conviction, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  its  acceptance  has  made  the 
world  a  different  place  for  millions.  But  this  is  not  the  only 
way.  Perhaps  it  is  even  more  important  that  the  religious 

1  Republic,  Bk.  vi.  p.  486.  "  Then  how  can  he  who  has  magnificence 
of  mind  and  is  the  spectator  of  all  time  and  all  existence,  think  much  of 
human  life?" 


The  Religious  Organisation  131 

life,  here  already  in  the  world  of  all  of  us,  and  apart  from  the 
special  faith  in  immortality,  has  found  an  anti- 
dote against  two  dangers,  perennial  in  human 


life,  but  especially  menacing  in  a  society  like  it  counteracts 

,     J  .  two  dangers. 

our  own.  One  is  the  danger  that  the  indi- 
vidual may  be  crushed  under  the  sense  of  his  personal  insig- 
nificance or  even  nothingness  :  the  other,  the  snare  of  every 
great  commercial  and  industrial  country,  that  he  may  forget 
or  deny  the  existence  of  immaterial  ends  at  all,  not  from  the 
temptation  to  plunge  into  license  but  from  absorption  in  that 
"virtuous  materialism  "  which  is  even  more  deadly.1 

But  it  is  just  in   presence   of  these   two   dangers   that  a 
Church  finds  its  opportunity.     To  the  despon- 

For  it  can 

dencies  of  the  first,  it  offers  participation  in  a  deliver  the 
corporate  life  dedicated  to  noble  ends,  which  {JSJSS*^ 
are  distant  only  in  the  sense  that  men  will  be  spondencies  of 
living  for  them  when  centuries  are  gone  as  they 


are  living  for  them  here  and  now.     And  to  the  fr°.m  ™a- 
comfortable  or  gross  materialism  of  the  second 
it  offers  the  better  way  of  a  more  spiritual  life.     Churches  may 
differ  as  to  what  materialism  is  :   they  may  differ  as  to  the 
means  of  counteracting  it,  from  the  hair  shirt  and  the  scourge, 
from   fast  and  penance,   to   the   policy  of  spiritualising   the 
comfortable  home  and  the  cheerful  intercourse  of  social  life. 
But  they  are  at  one  in  unslackening  hostility  to  gross  pleasures, 
absorption  in  creature  comforts,  and  the  slow  sap  of  a  luxu- 
rious and  frivolous  life. 

It  goes  closely  with  this   that  Churches  have  ever  been 
among  the  great  quickeners  of  moral  responsi-      church 
bility.      They   have   worked    by   many  instru-   membership 

,    can  also  do 

ments,  by  vows  and  penances,  by  ecclesiastical  much  to 


discipline  and  censure,  by  severance  from  the 
congregation,  by  keeping  of  the  conscience,  by 

1  De  Tocqueville  regards  this  as  the  real  danger  of  democratic  societies. 
Cf.  Democracy  in  America^  Part  n.  Bk.  n.  ch.  xi. 


132  The  Religious  Organisation 

consecrating  the  virtue  of  obedience,  by  insistence  on  the 
direct  accountability  of  the  soul  to  God.  But  all  have  worked 
to  one  end,  as  bearing  witness  to  the  reality  of  supreme  laws 
of  life  which  must,  on  penalties,  be  obeyed.  And  all  have 
striven  to  touch  the  heart  with  that  moral  emotion,  be  it 
reverence  for  authority,  fear  of  sin,  or  love  of  God,  without 
which  no  law,  however  august,  will  ever  move  the  will  to 
action.  We  may  not  say  that  it  is  only  the  religious  organi- 
sation that  can  do  this.  The  Family  begins  it;  the  School 
plays  its  part;  the  discipline  of  practical  life  adds  its  con- 
tribution. But  it  has  always  been  a  task  for  which  a  Church 
has  great  opportunities  ;  not  so  much  because  of  its  ethical 
teaching  (though  this  of  course  is  one  of  its  functions),  but 
rather  because  of  the  constant  pressure  it  brings  to  bear 
upon  the  conscience  throughout  the  years,  and  not  least  at 
those  seasons  when  the  years  inevitably  bring  man  face  to 
face  with  trial,  suffering,  bereavement,  and  death. 

Nor  would  it  be  just  to  place  the  ethical  teaching  of  a 

religious  organisation  on  just  the  same  level  as 

ditionai  ad-          that  of  the  mere  moralist,  however  earnest.   Being 

vantage  that         a  practical  even  more  than  a  didactic  institution, 

the  ethical 

teaching  of  a        a  Church  is  bound  to  illustrate  and  to  commend 
*<*  precepts  by  its  deeds.     And  it  is  here,  one 


practical  may  suspect,  that  there  is  more  room  in  our  own 

day  than  ever  for  that  time-honoured  insistence 
upon  the  worth  and  the  possibilities  of  the  individual  soul 
which  it  has  been  the  peculiar  glory  of  Christianity  to  proclaim. 
For  in  the  wider  outlook  of  our  day  upon  Nature  and  life,  it  is 
only  too  easy  to  come  to  think  that  the  individual  life  is  worth- 
less. What  is  it  in  comparison  with  the  teeming  life  of  perished 
generations?  What  is  it  in  its  insignificance  as  against  the 
thought  of  nothing  wider  than  the  massed  population  of  a  great 
empire  ?  No  thought  is  more  paralysing  than  this.  It  cuts  the 
very  nerve,  not  only  of  moral  but  of  educational  and  social  effort. 
For  though  those  who  work  for  moral  and  social  ends  need 


The  Religious  Organisation  133 

not  be  men  of  many  dogmas,  there  is  one  article  of  the  faith 
from  which  they  may  not  part,  —  this  conviction  of  the  worth 
and  possibilities  of  those  they  work  for.  It  would  be  rash 
to  assert  that  this  conviction  could  not  survive  the  downfall 
of  Churches.  On  that  we  need  not  speculate.  The  fact 
remains  that  no  influence  has  probably  done  more  hitherto 
to  keep  it  alive  than  the  message  of  Christianity,  repeated 
from  age  to  age,  that  the  most  flickering,  obscure,  and  even 
degraded  life  has  worth  in  the  eyes  of  God. 

It   remains   to   add   in   conclusion    that   a   Church,   even 
when  it  does  not  aspire  to  a  casuistical  keeping 

. - .    ,  •      i  Though  the 

of  the  conscience,  can  always,  if  it  be  genuinely  Religious  or- 

efficient,  do  something  in  opening  up  channels  5^is0atle™u 

of  social  work.     When   the   instinct   of  social  channels  of 

helpfulness  asserts  itself,  it  is  not  good  economy  JJJJbiSjH, 

that  the  young  should  be  left  to  strike  out  paths  main  concern 

f          i  i  -r.  i  ...          is  with  the 

for   themselves.      Better   that    an    organisation  spirit  in  which 
should  find  work  for  them  by  discovering  the  j™£n0eught  to 
best  use   for  the  gifts    and    aptitudes    of   its 
members.     Yet  one  may  doubt  if  it  is  more  than  a  subordinate 
part  of  a  religious  body's  work  to  find  a  sphere  of  action  for  its 
members.     Its  main  task  is  rather  to  create  the  spirit  in  which 
the  work  of  the  world,  sometimes  called  secular,  ought  to 
be  done.     So  that  thereby  the  rendering  unto  Caesar  of  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's  may  become,  not  the  false  antithesis, 
but  the  true  result,  of  rendering  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's. 


134  Unity  of  Character 

CHAPTER   IX 

SOCIAL  INFLUENCES  AND   UNITY  OF  CHARACTER 

WHEN,  in  later  years,  a  man  reviews  what  Society  has  done 
for  his  character,  he  will  be  fortunate  beyond 

The  educa-  ...  ...  r  ,  .  . 

tion  of  social        most  if  two  convictions  be  not  forced  upon  mm. 

h^Vtwo^main          °n6    iS    that    °f    a11    th°Se    instruments>    through 

defects:  which  Society  has  been  making  him  its  own, 


t'ons  are8""        there   is    not    °ne    but   might   have    been 

severally  And  though  reverence,  and  loyalty  to  his  home, 

his  school,  his  church,  as  well  as  an  inward  voice 

that  tells  him  he  is  far  from  having  made  the  most  of  these 

such  as  they  are,  may  keep  him  silent,  none  of  these  things 

need  hide  from  him  the  fact  that  home,  school,  and  church 

have  had  their  shortcomings.     He  is  still  less  likely  to  think 

his  ordinary  working  life,  or  his  public  life  have  been  a  perfect 

school  of  character.     For  this  indeed  they  do  not  claim  to  be. 

The  second  conviction  will  probably  be  that  the  course 

of  his  moral  education,  even  though  it  may  have 

character  they      given  him   many   a  quality  for  which    he    is 

produce  is  thankful,  has  been  beyond  denial  fragmentary. 

fragmentary,  *  .     J 

Something,  he  knows,  has  come  to  him  from 
one  influence,  something  from  another,  as  Family  gave  place 
to  School,  and  School  to  the  varied  influences  of  later  years  ; 
and  the  virtues  thus  derived  will  no  doubt  have  grown  to- 
gether into  some  kind  of  organic  unity,  psychological  if  not 
ethical.  But  there  will  also  be  other  memories  —  memories 
of  shocks  and  disillusionings  as  he  passed  from  the  quiet 
haven  of  home  to  school,  and,  again,  from  school  to  workshop 
or  office.  He  will  be  aware,  too  (for  which  of 
us  is  not?)>  of  incongruities,  shall  we  say  of 
contradictions,  between  the  requirements  of  the 


Unity  of  Character  135 

Church  and  of  the  world.  And  though  it  would  be  niggardly 
to  grudge  to  a  rational  being  a  natural  aspiration  after  consis- 
tency, this  will  hardly  hide  from  him  the  fact  that  he  is  not 
the  same  man  in  one  sphere  of  action  as  he  is  in  another, 
not  the  same  in  his  moral  standards,  and  it  may  be  very 
far  from  the  same  in  his  moral  practice. 

Something  of  this  he  may  dismiss  as  incidental  to  moral 
development.     For  it  may  be  accepted  that  few     This  is  be- 
can  pass  from  the  narrower  to  the  wider  ex-  ^"^JJJf 
periences  without  discoveries  and  disillusionings.1  are  not  per- 
But  much  will  remain  to  suggest  that  Society  is  ^cognls^d* 
out  of  joint  and  inconsistent  with  itself;  and   common  ideal, 
that  the  successive  beneficent  influences  which  have  done  so 
much  to  make  the  good  son,  schoolboy,  craftsman,  citizen, 
have   not  been  working  up   to  a  common   plan,   or   aiming 
steadily  at  that  unity  and  consistency  which  are  inseparable 
from  the  character  of  the  good  man. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that,  in  the  experience  of  most, 
this  is  the  actual  result.  When  we  say,  and  say  The  social 
truly,  that  society  moulds  our  characters,  we  organism  lacks 
must  not  fall  into  the  fallacy  that  lurks  under  e 
the  general  term.  We  must  not  ascribe  to  society,  even 
though  we  call  it  organism,  a  greater  ethical  unity  than  it 
actually  possesses.  The  fact  remains  that  within  society  we 
have  many  masters.  Some,  like  family  or  church,  make 
moral  character  their  prime  concern.  Others,  like  the  work- 
shop, the  counting-house,  or  the  political  party,  may  hardly 
think  of  moral  character  at  all.  Is  it  wonderful  then  that 
the  resulting  product  is  not  all  of  a  piece,  and,  to  speak  the 
truth,  often  grievously  lacking  in  that  well- compacted  harmony 
and  proportion  which  is  one  of  the  touchstones  by  which 
we  discriminate  the  man  of  character  from  the  man  of 
qualities? 

lCf.p.226. 


136  Unity  of  Character 

And  yet,  in  moral  education,  there  is  no  distinction  more 
vital  than  this.  Moral  education  must  not  be 

It  is  of  more 

importance  to  content  to  aim  at  the  development  of  qualities, 
of°haracteran  however  shining  and  effective.  It  must  estimate 
than  a  man  of  consistency  of  life  above  this  or  that  quality, 

qualities.  ,.«.',  , 

and  thereby  take  some  security  against  the  pro- 
duction of  the  type  of  man  in  whom  what  at  least  appear  to 
be  sterling  virtues  in  one  sphere  sadly  lack  their  counterparts 
in  another,  if  indeed  they  do  not  give  place  to  positive  vices. 
It  must  unify  the  life  as  well  as  enrich  it. 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  can  expect  even  the  best 
among  us  to  be  equally  strong  in  all  the  virtues.  On  the 
contrary,  men  will  differ  endlessly  here,  according  to  their 
native  aptitudes  and  according  to  their  vocation  and  oppor- 
tunities. The  important  matter  is  that  each  man,  in  whatever 
spheres  he  may  have  to  play  his  part,  should  carry  into  these 
the  same  principle  and  standard.  Yet  this  is  precisely  the 
result  that  is  not  likely,  so  long  as  the  great  moralising  social 
influences  which  we  have  been  discussing  work  in,  at  any 
rate,  partial  independence  of  each  other,  and  not  under  the 
unifying  influence  of  one  all-dominating  moral  plan  and 
purpose. 

This  being  so,  we  come  in  sight  of  two  conclusions.  One, 
that  the  moral  training  which  any  actual  society 

Hence  the  .      ...     .  -r      i       •  j       r 

education  of  is  likely  to  give,  stands  manifestly  in  need  of 
actual  insti-  supplementing  :  the  other,  that,  whatever  form 

tutions  needs 

supple-  this  supplementing  takes,  its  aim  must  be  to 

tJe^ntJr'es'ts  bring  into  human  character  more  of  that  unity, 
of  unity  of  consistency,  harmony,  proportion,  upon  which 

character.  ,        „        ,        .  .,  ,  r  . 

the  Greek  philosophers  were  never  weary  of  in- 
sisting as  the  essence  of  virtue. 

The  further  question  that  emerges  is  therefore  fairly  clear. 
We  must  ask  how  the  actual  influences  even  of  a  well-developed 
society  are  to  be  supplemented  in  this  direction.  And  to  this 
question  there  are  more  answers  than  one. 


Unity  of  Character 

It  was  the  conviction  alike  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  that  the 
betterment  of  the  character  of  individuals  is.  to 

It  has  been 

any  great   extent,   impossible   without   the   re-  held  that  this 


organisation  of  society,  the  instrument  of  edu- 

cation,  in  the  interests  of  the  moral  life.     They  reorganisation 

did  not   of  course   deny  that   even   in  a  bad  ° 

society  a  good  life  could  be  led.     There  are  pages  in  both, 

in  which  they  join  hands  with  the  Stoics  themselves  in   de- 

lineating the  victory  of  virtue   over   circumstance.     Yet   the 

doctrine  is  central  to  both  that  character  will  never  come  to 

its  best  until  the  day  that  sees  society  reorganised  as  at  once 

a  school  and  sphere  of  virtue. 

There  is  a  characteristic  well-known  passage,  in  which 
Plato  falls  to  discussing  what  a  man  has  open  to  him  when  his 
lot  has  fallen  amidst  adverse  and  evil  social  surroundings,  and 
when  it  seems  a  hopeless  struggle  to  make  the 
society  of  which  he  is  a  member  better.  Even  of™^6*01"11* 
then  a  strong  man  is  not  without  resource. 
He  can  withdraw  from  the  press  of  life,  possess  his  own  soul 
in  patience  like  one  who  shelters  from  the  wintry  blasts,  until 
the  day  comes  for  him  to  depart  with  a  calm  mind  to  the 
islands  of  the  Blessed.  But  then  Plato  adds,  "He  will  not 
have  reached  the  best,  nor  ever  can  he,  unless  he  have  found 
the  fitting  social  life."  x  Hence  the  burden  of  Plato's  whole 
message  that  the  hope  for  morality  lies  in  the  reform  of  in- 
stitutions. Commentators  have  sometimes  accused  him  of 
sacrificing  the  individual  to  the  State.  Strange  criticism  !  For 
is  not  his  ideal  State  expressly  devised  to  evoke  in  utmost 
fulness  all  that  he  believes  to  be  best  and  most  permanent 
in  human  nature  ?  There  is  nothing  more  characteristic  in 
Plato,  and  indeed  in  what  is  most  valuable  in  Greek  ethics, 
than  this. 

We  need   not  reject  it  as  a   devout  imagination.     Many 
are   the   generations   in  which   social   reformers   have   been 
1  Republic,  Bk.  VI.  496, 


138  Unity  of  Character 

proving  experimentally  that  society  is  modifiable.     And   the. 

evolutionists  have  come,  in  these  latter  days,  to 

viTweiSPnot0ni       tell  us  from  a  wide  survey  of  things  that,  by  the 

wholly  im-          very  jaws  of  iife    society  must   needs  undergo 

practicable;  J  .    . 

ceaseless  transformations.  And  though  evolution 
has  more  to  say  about  the  Whence  than  about  the  Whither 
of  this  process,  and  may  even  trample  ruthlessly  upon  the 
individual  and  his  hopes,  it  may  help  us  to  believe  that  there 

is  nothing  visionary  in  the  reformer  who  bids  us 

though  reform 

oftheeco-  work,  at  any  rate,  for  better   homes,  schools, 

poiTticainSys-  churches,  than  those  we  know.  It  is  when  we 
tems,  in  a  stand  face  to  face  with  the  forces  that,  in  a  moral 

Is  peculiarly  '  interest,  are  more  intractable,  in  other  words  with 
difficult.  tne  economic  and  political  systems,  that  the  diffi- 

culty comes.  For  however  far  we  may  be  from  the  obsolete 
conservatism  that  would  ascribe  to  these  the  fixity  of  Nature's 
ordinances,  experience,  even  though  now  and  again  illumined 
by  the  fires  of  revolution,  carries  the  lesson  that  their  modi- 
fication is  a  slow  process  at  best,  and  slowest  of  all  when 
it  is  our  aim  to  transform  institutions  into  better  instruments  for 
the  making  of  the  character  of  their  members.  They  are  so 
firmly  wedded  to  their  own  ends,  so  intent  upon  wealth- 
production  or  wealth -distribution,  or  upon  the  reform  or  de- 
fence of  the  constitution,  or  upon  the  administration  or  ex- 
pansion of  the  empire.  Not  that  there  is  any  reason  to  despair. 
On  the  contrary,  it  may  be  that  with  the  growth  of  the 
genuinely  democratic  spirit,  the  belief  in  the  worth  and  the 
possibilities  of  the  individual  man,  that  central  article  of  a 
democratic  creed,  may  steadily  translate  itself  ever  more  into 
practice.  And  if  so,  it  is  as  certain  as  any  social  forecast 
can  be  that  men  will  be  less  willing  than  heretofore  to  be 
dealt  with  as  nothing  more  than  means  whether  for  the 
creation  of  wealth,  or  for  the  realisation  of  political  pro- 
grammes. They  will  claim  to  be,  as  indeed  they  are,  "  ends 
in  themselves."  And  in  proportion  as  they  do  this,  character 


Value  of  Ideals  139 

as  the  ultimate  end  of  all  industrial  and  all  political  activities 
will  begin  to  get  something  more  nearly  its  due,  even  in  the 
scramble  for  wealth   and   the   struggle  for   power.     Yet   any 
reconstruction  of  institutions  is  slow,  arduous,      These  diffi- 
and  liable  to  be  in  a  thousand  ways  impeded  cuities  drive  us 

,  ,          ....      ,         .  .  to  ask  if  ,  apart 

by  imperious  economic  and  political  exigencies,  from  social 


by  the  growing  pressure  of  population,  by  the 
niggardliness  of  soils,  by  the  race  for  markets,  nothing  can 
by  the  rivalries  of  parties,  by  the  passion  for  bedone- 
national  aggrandisement,  even  it  may  be  by  the  struggle  for 
national  existence.  And,  this  being  so,  it  is  natural  to  ask  if 
anything  can  be  done  in  the  meanwhile.  The 

,  .  .  The  answer. 

answer  is  that  something,  perhaps  much,  may 

be  done  by  using  such  instruments  as  are  already  available, 

family,  school,  church,  and  the  rest,  in  the  service  of  Moral 

Ideals. 


CHAPTER   X 
EDUCATIONAL  VALUE  OF  MORAL  IDEALS 

IF  moral  ideals  are  to  help  us  in  education,  it  will  not 
be  by  bringing  into  life  elements  that  are  not      Moral  ideals 
already   found    there.     This   may,    it    is   true,   may  diverge 

from  actual 

happen  sometimes.     It  happens  at  those  rare  morality  in 
intervals  when  a  great  prophet  or  teacher  or  various  ways, 
brotherhood  lays  upon  the  world  the  obligation  of  some  hith- 
erto unrecognised  duty.     Yet,  even  then,  the  duties  that  find 
prophetic  utterance  are  sometimes   independently  discovered 
by  the  world,  so  that  the  voice  that  seems  to  be  crying  in  the 
wilderness  quickly  finds  an  echo  in  the  hearts  and  consciences 
of  willing  disciples.     And,  as  a  rule,  the  ideals  we  use,  and 


140  Value  of  Ideals 

the  ideals  we  need,  diverge  from  actual  morality  otherwise 
than  by  discovering  the  wholly  new.  Thus  they  diverge  by 
their  omissions;  and  indeed  we  may  always  form  a  quite 
unattainable  ideal  by  the  simple  expedient  of  omitting  our 
frailties  and  vices.  Whence  the  remark,  in  which  there  is  at 
least  a  half  truth,  that  ideals  are  but  men's  actual  lives  over 
again  with  the  flaws  and  failings  left  out.1 

It  is  more  to  our  present  point,  however,  that  in  what 
they  do  not  omit,  they  imply  an  altered  emphasis.  In  other 
words,  the  duties  they  embody  may  be  none  other  than  those 
that  meet  the  most  of  men  in  the  daily  round 
ciaiiy,' they"  and  common  task;  but,  then,  their  relative 
give  an  altered  preponderance  may  be  changed,  so  changed, 

relative  em-  .     «       «  ./.        ,  ,         ^      ' 

phasisto  indeed,  as  almost   to  justify  the  mistake  that 

duties  already      between  ideal  and  actual  the  vital  difference  is 

recognised. 

one  of  content. 

It  is  this  last  characteristic  that  is  of  especial  practical 
importance.  For  the  service  of  ideals  would  be  a  forlorn 
hope  if  it  were  the  task  of  education  to  impress  upon  man- 
kind duties  and  virtues  which  are  only  conspicuous  by  their 
absence.  For  this  is  not  what  those  who  have  come,  as  we 
all  have  come,  under  the  moralising  influences  of  actual 
institutions  mainly  need.  It  is  more  important  that  an  ideal 
should  embody,  though  in  juster  and  fairer  proportion,  the 
very  virtues  and  duties  which  those  to  whom  it  is  to  be  applied 
are  already  able  in  some  imperfect  fashion  to  fulfil,  For  it 
is  only  then  that  men  can  be  led  to  see  in  the  ideal  that 
is  held  up  to  them,  not  a  humiliating  reminder  of  what  they 
are  not,  but  a  forecast  of  what  they  may  hope,  and  have 
it  in  them,  to  be.  No  moral  ideal  is  needed  to  evoke  virtues 

1  Bonar,  Malthus  and  his  Work,  p.  27.  "  Writers  of  Utopias,  from 
Plato  to  More,  and  from  Rousseau  to  Ruskin,  have  always  adopted  one 
simple  plan :  they  have  struck  out  the  salient  enormities  of  their  own  time 
and  inserted  the  opposite,  as  when  men  imagine  heaven  they  think  of  their 
dear  native  country  with  its  discomforts  left  out." 


Value  of  Ideals  141 

and  duties.  These  come  by  the  normal  response  of  man's 
nature  to  the  actual  influences  under  which  he  passes  as  a 
social  being.  The  need  for  ideals  only  emerges  when,  as  we 
have  seen,  these  virtues  and  duties  are  found  to  stand  in  need 
of  a  more  coherent  and  better  proportioned  co-ordination  than 
they  find  in  that  imperfect  mirror  of  morality,  society  as  it  is. 

This  raises  at  once  two  further  questions  :    the  first,  how 
such  an  ideal  (or  ideals)  may  be  found  by  those 
(parents,  or  teacher,  or  moral  reformers)  with 
whom  rests  the  initiative  in  moral  education  ; 
the  second,  how,  when  found,  it  (or  they)  may  best  be  made 
effective. 

In  a  sense  there  is  nothing  easier  for  anyone  than  to  find 
a  moral  ideal.     For  such  ideals  abound.     They  abound,  from 
the  limited  and  homely  hopes  which  the  most 
average  of  parents  may  silently  cherish  for  his 
boy,   up   to   the   ideal   of  the   ethical   thinker  in  such  pro- 
set  forth  with  the  most  careful  classification  of 


virtues   tabulated   according   to   some  scale  of  problem  is  one 

..._.,  ,     of  selection. 

moral  valuation.  There  are  ideals  saintly  and 
worldly,  ascetic  and  hedonistic,  simple  and  elaborate,  rational 
and  emotional,  and  so  on  throughout  innumerable  varieties. 
The  whole  history  of  moral  progress  as  we  pass  down  the 
ages  is  the  record  of  a  succession  of  changing  ideals.  Nor 
is  there  any  highly  developed  society  which  does  not  exhibit 
the  spectacle  of  a  multitude  of  ideals  competing  with  each 
other  for  survival  and  supremacy.  In  brief,  ideals  are  so 
easy  to  find  that  the  problem  is,  not  to  find,  but  to  select. 

It  is  here  that  the  ethical  thinker  can  undoubtedly  help 
the  educator.     For  it  falls  to  him,  as  one  of  his      Selection 
most  important  tasks,  to   pass   before   him  in  however,  must 
critical  review,  not  otherwise  than  the  logician  some  prin^°n 
scrutinises  scientific  methods,  the  various  ideals   ciPle;  and  here 

...  ,  .  Philosophy 

which   moral   experience   has   produced.     The  can  render 
world  is  perhaps  prone  to  think  him  over-ready  service- 


142  Value  of  Ideals 

to  evolve  an  ideal  of  his  own.  But  in  truth  he  is  far  more 
concerned  to  examine  and  estimate  the  ideals  that  already 
exist  than  to  add  another  to  the  number.  Yet  he  will  be  a 
poor  critic  if  he  have  not  positive  convictions  of  his  own  to 
serve  him  as  a  standard.  If  he  is  to  criticise  with  firmness 
and  effect,  there  are  certain  points  upon  which  his  mind  must 
be  made  up.  He  must  be  clear  as  to  the  nature  and  authority 
of  Moral  Law;  he  must  glean  all  that  Psychology  has  to 
tell  him  of  human  endowment  and  faculty;  he  must  satisfy 
himself  as  to  the  fundamental  conditions  of  social  life  through 
which,  as  instrument,  in  which,  as  sphere  of  action,  moral 
development  is  alone  possible.  And  from  these  data  he  must 
frame  his  conclusions  as  to  the  ideal  type  of  man  in  whom 
the  Moral  Law  can  find  its  noblest  and  most  adequate  attain- 
able realisation.  His  result  of  course  will  be  abstract.  It 
will  remain  inevitably  abstract  even  when  he  does  his  utmost 
to  descend  to  statement  about  the  particular  stage  and  mode 
of  civilisation  in  which  he  is  himself  an  actor.  And  if  any 
parent  or  teacher  goes  to  him,  as  a  Greek  father  once 
went  to  Pythagoras,  expecting  to  be  told  what  to  make  of 
his  boy,  he  need  expect  no  more  than  the  advice  that  limits 
itself  to  generalities.  This  is  to  be  expected. 

For  though  ,,_,  ,  .  ,  .    ,  ,  -it 

the  ethical  When   an   ethical   thinker  formulates  an  ideal, 


^  t^ie  farmuar  device  of  sweeping 
abstract,  and  abstraction  —  abstraction  from  peculiarities  of 
so  far  empty,  individual  faculty,  and  from  peculiarities  of 
social  circumstance.  It  would  however  be  rash  in  the  extreme 
to  infer  that  on  this  account  the  thinker's  ideal  is  barren  of 
guidance.  Individual  peculiarities  do  not  swallow  up  the 
whole  of  human  nature,  nor  peculiarities  of  social  circumstance 
the  whole  of  social  life.  And  this  being  so,  the  educator 
who  turns  for  light  to  the  ethical  thinker  will  be  so  far  from 
going  empty  away,  that  he  will  carry  with  him,  not  indeed 
it  remains  of  tne  concrete  ideal  which  he  will  strive  to 
value-  actualise  in  his  son  or  his  pupil,  but  the  core 


Value  of  Ideals  143 

round  which  this  concrete  ideal  will  gather.  For  the  thinker's 
ideal,  if  it  be  based  on  a  genuine  study  of  what  man  is,  and 
what  moral  law  is,  will  be  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  even  when  it  is  very  far  from  being  the  whole  truth. 

And  yet,  however  great  the  service  it  can  render  here,  it 
would  ill  befit  philosophy  to  be  dictatorial  in 
insisting  that  ideals  must  have  the  hall-mark  of 
Theory  upon  them  before  they  are  fit  for  enact-   able  to  require 

J    ,  .  that  all  ideals 

ment.  Ideals  are  not  born  of  philosophy  alone,  be  held  on 
They  existed  when  as  yet  philosophy  was  not. 
They  have  come  into  being,  like  the  virtues  and 
duties  that  are  their  substance,  in  obedience  to  the  needs 
and  strivings  of  the  ages  before  theory,  and  more  especially 
in  response  to  that  craving  for  coherency  and  unity  of  life 
which  is  inherent  in  rational  beings,  whether  they  be  phi- 
losophers or  not.  And  when,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  the 
ethical  theorist  comes  upon  the  scene,  it  is  not  his  function 
to  decimate  the  ideals,  however  diverse  they  may  be,  which 
have  made  good  their  place  in  the  imaginations,  the  aspira- 
tions, and  the  practice  of  the  world.  If  he  should  be  tempted 
in  that  direction,  there  are  facts  to  keep  him  tolerant  and 
comprehensive.  For  he  must  know,  if  he  know  anything,  that 
philosophy  is  still  at  war  within  its  own  household  as  to 
the  manner  of  ideal,  ascetic  or  hedonistic,  individualistic  or 
social,  which,  in  the  name  of  analysis,  it  is  to  hold  up  to 
the  world.  Add  to  this  that,  in  proportion  as  his  outlook 
has  a  true  philosophic  width,  he  must  see,  however  firmly 
he  may  hold  to  his  own  central  convictions,  that  in  the 
manifold  diversities  of  human  endowment,  circumstance,  and 
function,  there  is  room  and  to  spare  for  variety  of  plan  of 
life.  Nor  can  he  fail  to  know,  for  none  ought  to  know  better 
than  he,  how  real  is  the  world's  need  of  ideals. 
These  things  being  so,  he  may  well  pause  before  ought  to°XeU 
taking  it  upon  himself  to  rule  out  even  one 
ideal,  however  modest  or  however  fanatical, 


144  Value  of  Ideals 

however  fragmentary  or  however  incomplete  it  may  be,  so 
long  as  he  is  convinced  that  it  makes  for  any  needful  uplifting 
of  standard  and  practice.  Rather  ought  he  to  rejoice  that  the 
competition  of  ideals  is  so  large  a  fact.  For  he  will  be  able 
to  see  in  it,  not  only  a  consensus,  all  the  stronger  because  a 
consensus  amidst  rivalries,  that  ideals  are  in  demand,  but 
a  witness  to  the  vitality  of  Moral  Law,  which  thus  needs 
for  its  realisation  the  service  of  many  minds  and  many 
hands. 

This  toleration  of  ideals,  however,  must  not  be  taken  to 

TWO  alter-         imply  that   all  ideals  are  on  a  par,  and  that 

natives  to  selection  is  other  than  a  matter  of  the  first  mo- 

philosophical 

ideals.  ment.     For  between  the  adoption  of  an  ideal 

upon  philosophic  grounds  —  a  thing  at  most  for  the  minority  — 
and  its  adoption  upon  no  grounds  at  all,  there  are  two  alterna- 
tives. 

One  of  these  is  to  look  to  Authority  —  a  Church,  a  chosen 
Leader,  a  Book,  it  may  be  a  Philosopher  —  and 

Authority  as  * 

source  of  to  take  the  ideal  from  it  upon  trust.     It  is  what 

ideals-  is  actually  done  in  many  a  home,  school,  or 

church;  and  it  has  its  justifications.  If  it  would  be  un- 
reasonable, and  even  monstrous,  to  declare  that  no  one  is 
entitled  to  adopt  an  ideal  and  enact  it  till  he  has  thought  it 
out  for  himself  upon  philosophical  grounds,  one  of  the  alter- 
natives open  is  to  take  it  upon  trust.  The  risk  is  obvious. 
Trust  may  be  misplaced,  and  deference  blind  and  slavish. 
Deference  to  Yet  there  are  Authorities  and  Authorities,  and 
Authority  may  when  any  one  of  them  can  point  to  a  long  record 

imply  defer-  r       .  .  ,  .  ,       ..   . b   r       . 

encetoEx-  of  educative  achievement  as  credentials  for  its 
perience.  dogmatic  ideal,  he  who  submits  his  reason  and 

accepts  his  ideal  in  faith,  can  still  claim  to  be  paying  his 
tribute  to  what  has  stood  the  sifting  test  of  experience.  "  A 
conscientious  person  would  rather  doubt  his  own  judgment 
than  condemn  his  species,"  says  Burke,  putting  with  even  more 
than  his  usual  emphasis,  one  of  many  pleas  for  deference  to 


Value  of  Ideals  145 

authority.1  And  the  plea  may  always  find  a  reasonable  place, 
if  those  who  fall  back  upon  it  are  as  careful  as  Burke  to 
discriminate  the  authority  that  has,  from  the  authority  that  has 
not,  the  argument  from  long  experience  to  recommend  it. 

This  however  is  not  the  sole  alternative.     Intuition  divides 
with  Authority  the  suffrages  of  the  non-theorising 

9        Intuition  as 

world.     Needless  to  say  that  it  too  has  its  snares,   source  of 

Trust  in  Intuition  may  be  nothing  more  than  ldeals- 

a  fine    phrase    for    caprice   and   precipitancy.      Hence   the 

"experiments   in   education"   we    sometimes   light    upon    in 

families  whose  heads   are   opinionatively  set   upon   following 

their  own  lights.      This  however  is  but  the  parody.     For  it 

is  in  life   as  in  all  other    arts.      There   is   an  insight   that 

comes  of  experience,  an  intuitive  penetration 

that  is  the  fruit  of  long  and  thoughtful  contact  thlt  comlf  of 

with  moral  fact.     It  does  not  find  its  ideal  by  contact  with 

fact 

analysis  and  reasoning.  It  is  enough  that  the 
ideal  be  presented,  it  may  be  in  the  glowing  words  of  some 
ethical  prophet,  or  in  some  commanding  figure  of  fact  or 
fiction.  Forthwith  it  is  adopted  with  an  unwavering  allegiance. 
It  is  in  one  or  other  of  these  two  ways  that  the  vast 
majority  of  our  educators  find,  and  are  likely  long  to  continue 
to  find,  their  ideals.  And  though  there  are  superiorities  — 
and  they  are  not  slight  2  —  which  attach  to  the 
ideal  that  is  held  upon  reasoned  grounds,  this 


is  far  from  justifying  philosophy  in  declaring  war  to  Authority 

A      i        .  j     T  *   *        T  8          .    and  Intuition. 

upon  Authority  and  Intuition.      In  respect  of 
his  own  convictions  the  philosopher,  being  a  believer  in  rea- 
soned truth,  may  refuse  to  trust  to  either.      But  so  long  as 
he   recognises,  with   Plato,3  the   fact  that  reasoned  truth  is 

1  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol,  Works,  vol.  n.  p.  39. 

2  Cf.  pp.  197-202. 

8  Cf.  Republic,  Bk.  vi.  494.  "  It  is  impossible  for  the  multitude  to  be 
philosophers."  This  conviction  is  part  of  Plato's  contempt  for  the  masses. 
But  even  the  strongest  democratic  faith  must  admit  that  philosophical 


146  Value  of  Ideals 

beyond  the  hard-driven  practical  world,  the  most  fruitful  ser- 
vice he  can  render  will  be  to  strive  to  make  Authority  more 
rational  and  Intuition  more  discriminating. 

The  further  question  is  how,  once  ideals  are  adopted,  they 

HOW  ideals        can  best  be  made  effective. 

are  realised.  ^his  question  has  already  found   a  partial 

answer.  For  the  channels  of  influence  are  none  other 
than  these  social  institutions  which  have  been  already  dealt 
with.  This  is  abundantly  recognised  in  the  case  of  some 
of  them.  Family,  School,  Church  are  all  avowedly  enlisted  in 
the  service  of  ideal  morality.  But  this  is  not  enough.  Never 
will  ideals  really  leaven  the  world  if  their  realisation  be 

ideals  must       l6^  to  those,  the  parents,  teachers,  priests,  and 

enlist  in  their  moralists,  who  are  SO  tO  Say  educators  by  pro- 
service  leaders  Y. 

in  industry  fession.     They  must  also  enlist  in  their  service 

and  politics.         those  who  lead  in  industry  and  politics. 

There  are  many  to  whom  this  requirement  will  seem  Utopian ; 
and  it  may  be  freely  conceded  to  them  that  men 

Character  is  '  ,  .  .          ,       . 

the  ultimate  are  not  to  be  expected  to  enter  either  business 
end  of  aii  or  politics  with  the  direct  moral  aim  of  making 

social  activity. 

better  men.  The  leaders  of  commerce  or  in- 
dustry will  think  mainly  of  competence  or  wealth,  and  the 
politicians  will  look  more  to  the  transaction  of  the  national 
business,  and  to  the  material  conditions  of  national  power  and 
happiness,  than  to  the  moral  development  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen.  Yet  it  is  well  within  the  scope  of  both,  if  they 
have  a  genuine  patriotism,  to  hold  steadily  before  their  eyes 
the  type  of  man  they  would  wish  to  see  in  the  workshops, 
offices,  fleets,  armies,  polling-booths  of  their  country,  and  to 
shape  their  action  accordingly.  It  is  precisely  in  the  sphere 
of  industry,  commerce,  and  politics  that  ideals  are  most 
needed  to  uplift  the  practice  of  the  world ;  and  unless  those 
who  lead  there  find  room  beside  commercial  and  political 

analysis  and  construction  are,  if  only  by  reason  of  the  urgency  of  practical 
life,  quite  beyond  the  average  man.  Cf.  p.  195. 


Value  of  Ideals  147 

ambitions,  for  moral  ideals,  the  life  of  livelihood  and  the  life 
of  citizenship  will  inevitably  remain  the  imperfect  school  of 
virtue  we  have  seen  them  to  be1.  The  character  of  the 
citizen  was  the  supreme  political  as  well  as  moral  end  in 
the  eyes  of  the  great  philosophers  of  Greece.  And  though 
in  the  larger  and  more  complex  modern  State  it  can  no 
longer  be  made  the  direct  object  of  public  action  to  the 
same  extent  as  in  the  small  self-centred  communities  of 
antiquity,  it  must  still  stand  as  the  one  supreme  and  satisfying 
end  for  which  all  polities  exist. 

It  is  not   enough   however  to  describe   the  contributions 
which  the  various  natural  and  social  influences, 
which  we  have  passed  in  brief  review,  make  to  pedients  for 


this  high  enterprise.  For  there  are  certain  quite 
specific  and  time-honoured  expedients  to  which 
mankind,  from  the  dawn  of  history,  have  never  failed  to  turn. 
And  they  have  been  used  with  so  firm  a  faith  and  such 
manifest  effect,  both  by  individuals  and  institutions,  that  they 
demand  a  separate  and  more  detailed  consideration.  These 
are  the  thrice-  familiar  resources  of  Punishment,  Example,  and 
Precept. 

1Cf.  pp.  1  1  8,  128,  134. 


148  Punishment 


CHAPTER   XI 

PUNISHMENT1 

WE  have  seen  (with  the  help  of  Herbert  Spencer)  that 
Nature  has  her  sanctions.  So  have  institutions, 
of  Sanctions3!'  ^°  ^ave  individuals.  Many  of  these  sanctions 
are  of  express  human  contrivance,  and  are  prompt 
and  definite,  like  the  penalties  imposed  by  parent  or  school- 
master or  the  stern  reactions  of  the  criminal  law  upon  the 
public  malefactor.  Others  fall  no  less  surely  and  heavily 
though  they  have  never  been  deliberately  planned,  and  make 
themselves  felt  only  after  many  days,  as  when  a  self-seeker  or 
a  cynic,  who  has  done  despite  to  the  ties  of  family  and  friend- 
ship, finds  himself  in  later  life  alone  in  the  world,  or  as  when 
the  thriftlessness  or  extravagance  of  years  has  at  last  brought  its 
victim  to  want.  For  Nemesis  is  a  goddess  not  to  be  dethroned. 
Swiftly  or  slowly,  and  through  all  degrees  of  severity  up  to 
beggary,  infamy  or  death,  she  pays  her  unwelcome  wages. 

Many  of  these  reactions,  it  must  be  obvious,  are  little  or  at 

all  within  control,  and  many,  when  they  are,  are  of  such  difficult 

application  that  both  individual  and  collective  want  of  wisdom 

Suffering          ^ave  blundered  badly  in  applying  them.     But 

and  the  art  of       this  would  be  a  poor  reason  for  standing  aside 

and  leaving  "  Nature  "  to  do  the  work.     The 

inference  lies  in  the  opposite  direction.    Mankind  have  suffered, 

1  There  is  a  suggestive  chapter  on  Punishment  in  McTaggart's  Studies 
in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  pp.  129 — 150. 


Punishment  149 

do  suffer,  and  will  continue  to  suffer,  so  much,  under  sanctions 
of  one  kind  or  another,  that  the  magnitude  of  the  suffering 
becomes  a  challenge  to  every  educator  and  law  reformer  to 
devise  methods  whereby  this  bitter,  and  too  often  barren, 
harvest  of  suffering  may  be  made  tributary  to  the  public  good 
and  the  discipline  of  character.  Nor  have  they  declined  the 
challenge.  They  have  rather  turned  their  thoughts  to  the 
theory  and  art  of  Punishment. 

For  it  has  long  been  recognised  that  there  are  certain  large 
general  ends  towards  which  Punishment  may  be 
directed.  It  may  be  retributive :  the  culprit 
must  expiate  his  offence.  It  may  be  deterrent : 
it  may  stay  the  steps  of  the  offender  from  offence,  or  if  the 
offence  and  its  penalty  needs  must  come,  it  may  scare  him, 
and  such  as  can  profit  by  his  example,  from  a  repetition  of  the 
experience.  It  may  be  eliminative  (or  suppressive)  :  it  may, 
by  locks  and  bars  or  other  method,  make  further  wrong-doing 
impossible.  Above  all  it  may  be  educative  (or  reformatory)  : 
it  may  strive  to  make  the  culprit,  one  may  not  say  perfect 
through  suffering — for  no  man  since  the  dawn  of  time  ever 
became  perfect  through  suffering  alone — but  at  anyrate  less 
imperfect  than  he  would  have  been  had  the  hand  of  punish- 
ment never  fallen  upon  him. 

Not  that  these  principles  by  any  means  exclude  each  other. 
Reform  need  not  be  sundered  from  deterrence ;  and  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  retribution  can  never  be  absent  if  punishment 
is  to  do  its  work,  as  we  shall  see.  And  therefore,  if  it  be  said 
that  it  is  important  (and  in  truth  it  is  of  vital  moment)  to 
choose  between  these  principles,  this  need  mean  no  more  than 
that  some  one  principle  is  chosen  as  paramount. 

There  can,  however,  be  little  doubt  as  to  which  we  must 
wish  to  be  paramount  in  education.     It  may,  or 
may  not,  be  the  function  of  the  State  to  better   as  an  "duca" 
the  character  of  its  citizens  through  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  penal  Law ;  on  this  point  publicists 


resource. 


150  Punishment 

may  differ;  but  when  the  making  of  the  character  is  the 
central  aim,  as  of  course  it  is  in  education,  the  only  question 
worth  asking  is  whether  punishment  can  be  so  used  as  to 
secure  this  indubitably  desirable  result.  And,  as  all  forms 
of  punishment  work  through  the  infliction,  in  fear  of  the 
infliction,  of  pain,  this  question  may  be  resolved  into  the 
enquiry  if  this  infliction  of  pain  can  be  made  a  means  of 
betterment. 

The  answer  is  that  it  can,  or  rather  that  it  can  provided  one 
condition  be  satisfied,  in  the  absence  of  which  all 

Punishment  ,        .         _  ,        ,.    ,  .,        „,, 

ought  to  act         else  is  of  comparatively  slight  avail.     That  con- 


upon  the  will        dition  is  that  the  infliction  of  pain  be  so  used  as 

of  the  culprit. 

to  produce  in  the  sufferer  a  consciousness  of 
having  done  wrong,  and,  by  consequence,  a  real  penitence  for 
his  offence.  This  is  central.  No  genuine  progress  in  character 
can  be  achieved  by  punishing  any  offender  unless  we  have 
succeeded  in  securing  that  altered  attitude  to  his  offence  which 
involves  firstly,  that  he  acknowledges  his  offence  (if  only  to 
himself:  it  need  not  be  by  open  confession),  and,  secondly, 
that  he  repents  of  having  committed  it.  The  whole  case  for 
the  educative  value  of  punishment  turns  on  this.  Short  of  this, 
we  can  of  course  do  something.  We  can  convince  even 
hardened  backsliders  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  retribution. 
We  can  deter  by  terror  from  the  commission  or  repetition  of 
offences.  We  can  segregate  and  suppress,  not  otherwise  than 
as  we  can  shut  up  dangerous  animals.  But  we  do  little  for 
character,  even  when  we  may  do  much  for  correct  behaviour, 
until  we  have  secured  the  penitent  will. 

It  is  safe  to  say,  however,  that  this  will  never  be  done  unless 
TO  secure          tne  source  ^rom  which  the  penalty  emanates  be, 
this  result,  the      either  before  the  punishment  is  administered  or 
after   **>   recognised   as    the    organ   of  a  moral 


be  recognised       authority.     One  often  hears  it  said,  and  it  is  too 

as  moral.  ,         .  . 

true  a  tale,  that  the  punishments  inflicted  under 
the  Criminal  Law  of  the  State  seldom  induce  repentance.     It 


Punishment  151 

is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  For  the  State,  as  actually  with  us, 
is  not  recognised,  or,  at  most,  imperfectly  recognised,  as  the 
organ  of  a  moral  authority.  Thinkers  who  follow  Hegel  may 
so  regard  it.  Nor  need  it  be  denied  that,  to  a  certain  extent, 
Courts  of  Justice  do  voice  the  verdict  of  the  popular  conscience. 
But  unhappily  this  is  a  lesson  the  criminal  has  still  to  learn. 
He  knows,  of  course,  that  he  has  broken  the  law  of  his  country, 
but  all  too  seldom  does  he  interpret  his  punishment  as  a 
revelation  of  the  fact  that  he  is  guilty  of  moral  turpitude  as 
well  as  crime.  His  conscience  is  not  touched.  Far  otherwise, 
however,  in  home,  or  school  or  church.  In  them  the  authority 
that  punishes  is,  normally  at  any  rate,  recognised  as  a  moral 
authority,  and  with  that  the  punishment  takes 
on  a  different  aspect.  It  becomes  a  way  —  not  the 


best  way  but  still  an  effective  way  —  of  enforcing   lesson  in 

5     morality. 

a  lesson  in  morality.  For  the  culprit  has  his 
eyes  opened  to  the  fact  that,  by  heedlessness  or  sluggishness 
or  self-will  or  passion,  he  has  lapsed  into  an  offence  against  a 
law  that  has  a  moral  sanction,  an  offence  from  which  his  own. 
conscience  ought  to  have  saved  him.  And  when  that  percep- 
tion is  awakened,  it  is  a  short  step  to  remorse  and  penitence 
Nor  is  it  necessary  that  the  punishment  be  severe.  Even  a 
penalty  that  may  at  first  sight  seem  trivial  in  comparison  with 
the  gravity  of  the  offence  may  be  enough,  if  it  suffices  to  shake 
the  culprit  out  of  illusions,  to  convince  him  that  he  is  morally 
guilty,  and  that  a  moral  obligation  is  not  lightly  to  be  set  aside. 
Nor  can  one  doubt  that  if  only  the  State,  or  Society,  in  its 
reactions  upon  offenders,  could  come  to  be  clothed  in  the  eyes 
of  its  members  with  the  same  moral  attributes  that  are  already 
freely  ascribed  to  family,  school  and  church,  it  would  wield  the 
tremendous  sanctions  of  public  sentiment,  and  punitive  action, 
and  criminal  law  more  effectively  in  the  interests  of  moral 
reform,  and  less  effectively  for  the  degradation  of  such  as  fall 
under  its  heavy  hand,  than  it  does  in  the  present  imperfect 
condition  of  human  affairs. 


152  Punishment 

Nor  is  it  the  least  of  the   advantages  of  Punishment,  thus 

TWO  con-          regarded,  that  it  helps  us  to  put  a  right  construc- 

comitants  of        tion  upon    those  two  repulsive  but  inseparable 

Punishment.  .  r     n    j    1-1  ••>•"••  /• 

concomitants  of  all  deliberate  infliction  of  pain, 
fear  and  disgrace. 

Wherever  punishment  exists,  it  is  inevitably  shadowed  by 
fear.  Nor  is  anyone  likely  to  deny  that,  in  a 
thousand  cases,  fear  of  pains  and  penalties  may 
become  abject  and  slavish.  But  fear  of  the  penalties  adminis- 
tered by  an  authority  that  is  respected  is  another  thing.  For 
then  it  is  not  the  mere  pain  that  is  feared.  The  pain  that  is 
feared  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  fear  of  painful  alienation 
from  what — be  it  person  or  institution  or  law — is  recognised  as 
good.  And,  so  transformed,  it  may  so  entirely  lose  its  slavish- 
ness  as  to  become  a  kind  of  tribute  to  morality.  Better  no 
doubt  that  moral  motive  should  be  unadulterated  by  fear  at 
all.  Yet  if  fear  must  come,  as  come  it  must  in  the  wake  of 
punishment,  the  fear  that  flows  even  in  part  from  respect  for 
the  accredited  representatives  and  organs  of  moral  law  is  no 
longer  abject.  One  may  see  this  unmistakably  in  all  those 
cases — teacher  and  pupil,  father  and  child — where  there  are 
mutual  relations  of  confidence  and  affection  between  the 
punished  and  the  punisher.  Who  can  deny  that  in  these  the 
base  fear  of  pain  may  sink  quite  into  the  background,  and 
become  almost  a  negligible  quantity  ?  The  affection  of  child 
for  parent,  or  the  respect  of  pupil  for  teacher,  is  not  so  fragile 
a  plant  as  to  wither  up  into  slavish  fear  under  the  ordeal  of 
even  many  a  punishment,  if  only  the  penalties  be  just. 

Similarly  with  disgrace.  Inevitably  there  is  disgrace  in  all 
punishment,  and  so  we  often  meet  the  remark 

(b)   Disgrace.     «  . 

that  punishment  is  degrading.  So  it  is,  if  our 
minds  travel  no  further  than  the  penalty,  and  the  thought  of 
how  subjection  to  it  must  appear  in  the  eyes  of  onlookers. 
But  if  the  inevitable  disgrace  in  these  ways  be  indeed  the 
culprit's  price  for  penitence,  it  will  forthwith  take  on  a  new 


Punishment  153 

character  as  the  way  of  escape  from  a  bad  will,  and  as  per- 
adventure  the  beginning  of  a  new  life.  Disgrace  is  no  longer 
degradation  if  it  be  a  step  in  moral  advance.  The  degradation 
lies  in  the  offence  :  the  punishment,  and  its  disgrace,  are  rather 
to  be  welcomed  as  a  step  out  of  degradation. 

It   follows  closely  upon   this  that,  if  punishment  is  to  be 
reformatory,  it  must  be  also  retributive.     For,  if      The  retribu_ 
the  path  to  reformation  lies  through  penitence,   tive  element  in 
let  no  one  fancy  that  there  can  be  penitence   Punishment- 
without   suffering.     This   is   inevitable.     The   penalty   indeed 
may  be  light :  it  may  even  be  remitted  altogether  and  yet  the 
suffering  may  remain  bitter  beyond  words.     Nor  can  it  ever  be 
otherwise,  so  long  as  the  backslider  can  only  be  brought  back 
into  a  right  relation  to  the  law  he  has  broken  by  feeling  in  full 
measure  the  shame  of  the  offence  of  which  he  has  been  guilty. 
In  this  sense  he  must  drink  the  cup  of  suffering  to  the  dregs ; 
in  this  sense  expiate  his  offence ;  in  this  sense  make  reparation, 
to  the  last  jot  and  tittle,  to  the  law  he  has  broken. 

Nor,  we  may  add,  is  it  wrong  for  the  authority  that  punishes, 
or  for  the  community,  small  or  great,  that  stands      Moral  senti_ 
behind  it,  to  cherish  that  indignation  at  wrong-   ment can  make 
doing  on  which  the  believers  in  the  retributary  mor^edilca- 
principle  usually  insist.     It  is  good  for  a  nation  tive- 
that  it  should  hate  crime  with  a  perfect  hatred  as  well  as  punish 
it :  it  is  good  for  a  school  or  family  that  it  should  abhor  vice 
as  well  as  check  it :  it  is  good  that  there  should  be  in  both  a 
passionate  indignation  if  outrage  goes  unpunished,  and  a  felt 
satisfaction   where   nemesis    overtakes   guilt.      And    this,    not 
because  of  any  vindictiveness  of  spirit  or  lack  of  compassion 
for  the  culprit,  but  for  the  better  reason  that,  in  order  that 
punishment  may  work   reform   and  teach  its  stern   lesson  in 
morality  it  is  never  so  effective  for  these  purposes  as  when  it 
has  a  strong  public  sentiment  behind  it.     When  Burns  breathed 
over  the  arch-enemy  of  the  human  race  the  aspiration,  "  Oh 
wad  ye  tak'  a  thocht  and  mend !  "  we  may  admire  the  courage 


1  54  Punishment 

of  his  compassion;  but  if  it  ever  entered  into  the  scope  of 
education  to  reform  that  hoary  criminal,  it  will  hardly  be 
disputed  that  those  who  embark  upon  the  task  would  have 
their  hands  greatly  strengthened  by  a  sufficient  public  detesta- 
tion of  his  works  of  darkness. 

This  last  point  is  however  somewhat  speculative,  and  it 
may  serve  a  better  purpose  if,  as  a  parable,  it 
^e  use<^  to  suggest  tne  verv  practical  question  : 
Are  there  no  incorrigibles,  and  what  are  we  to 
do  with  them?  This  is  pertinent,  because  it  is  in  presence  of 
the  incorrigibles  that  a  purely  reformatory  theory  of  punishment 
breaks  down.  For  of  course,  if  our  only  justifiable  principle  in 
punishing  were  reform,  it  would  follow  that  we  ought  to  punish 
our  incorrigibles  not  at  all.  In  other  words  we  should  let  the 
incorrigibles  go  scot  free,  and  punish  the  rest  who  have  the 
credit,  such  as  it  is,  of  not  being  altogether  hardened 
sinners. 

It  is  everywhere  an  acute  problem  ;  but  it  is  far  more  acute 
for  the  family  or  the  school  than  for  the  State.  For  the  State 
can  fall  back  on  Elimination.  If  it  cannot  cure,  or  even  deter, 
it  can  shut  up  and  segregate,  if  need  be  for  life.  It  can  do 
this  in  the  public  interest.  But  we  cannot  do  this  in  the 
School.  The  School  no  doubt,  when  the  worst  comes  to  the 
worst,  can  expel,  and  so  relieve  itself  of  this  contagious 
residuum.  But  that  does  not  solve  the  problem  :  it  only  turns 
it  over  to  some  one  else,  be  it  the  truant  school  or  reformatory, 
or  to  the  home  —  if  indeed  these  wretched  failures  have  a  home 
to  own  them.  And  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  family  itself  ? 
Is  it  to  shut  its  doors,  and  cut  the  ties  of  nature,  and  let  them 
go  —  to  penal  servitude  in  the  long  run,  or  to  worse  ? 

It  is  hard  to  say.  Nor  are  we  greatly  helped  by  the  obvious 
conclusion  that  so  far  as  incorrigibles  exist,  they 
must  be  dealt  with,  if  only  in  the  interests  of 


to  be  dealt  public  order,  decency  and  moral  sanitation,  on 

some  other    principle   than    either  reform    or 


Punishment  155 

deterrence.     There  is  no  escaping  the  fact  that  Society  must 
segregate  its  moral  lepers. 

But  there  is  another  way  and  attitude.  It  is  to  hope 
against  hope,  and  this  is  happily  not  the  same 
as  to  hope  against  possibility.  For  good  and  co^dgibies  "m 
evil,  despite  all  their  repugnancy,  are  so  strangely  afe  inc°r«- 
blended  in  human  nature  that,  in  many  an 
instance,  it  is  rashness  itself  to  rush  to  the  conviction  that 
good  is  non-existent  because  it  may  seem  to  have  vanished. 
After  all,  many  of  the  worst  cases  are  cases  of  lapse,  and  where 
good  has  once  been,  it  dies  hard.  Testimony  is  not  lacking 
from  those  who  have  been  in  life-long  presence  of  even  the 
worst  of  the  criminal  classes,  which  bears  witness  to  the 
presence,  even  in  infamy  and  deep  degradation,  of  some 
lingering  forlorn  traits  of  a  better  life,  some  sparks  of  human 
feeling  to  which  appeal  may  be  made  and  not  in  vain.  Hence 
the  hopes,  not  only  of  sanguine  philanthropists  but  of  expert 
criminologists,  that,  by  a  long  and  careful  course  of  moral 
hygiene,  involving  little  punishment  except  the  necessary 
penalty  of  prolonged  compulsory  restraint  and  discipline,  many 
a  life,  especially  of  course  if  it  be  still  a  young  life,  may  be 
rescued  which  our  forefathers  would  have  abandoned  as  hope- 
less. He  would  be  a  bold  man  who  averred  that  the  science 
and  art  of  criminology  has  touched,  or  nearly  touched,  its 
limits. 

Nor  must  we  needlessly  darken  for  ourselves  our  estimates 
of  the  so-called  incorrigibles  of  school  or  home  by  viewing 
them  under  the  shadow  cast  by  the  atrocious  habitual  criminals 
of  Law  Courts  and  prisons.  In  ten  thousand  cases,  they  are 
manifestly  far  from  wholly  bad,  and  above  all  they  have  not 
had  the  time  to  become  hardened.  And  if  this  be  so,  it  is 
anything  but  Utopian  to  pluck  courage  from  the  many  and 
ever-increasing  resources  of  education,  and  steadily  to  refuse  to 
fling  aside  the  incorrigible  upon  the  ghastly  scrap-heap  of 
worthless  lives,  until  patience  and  contrivance  are  exhausted. 


156  Punishment 

How  much  more  with  the  cases  which  are  not  "  incorri- 
The  art  of          gible,"  and  far  from  wholly  bad.     For  however 
Punishment          necessary  the  art  of  Punishment  may  be,  it  is 
nothing   more  than  an  under-agent  in  the  far 


place  in  greater  art  of  making  character.     Even  for  pur- 

education.  _  ,  .  i\  •    /-  11 

poses  of  repression  (as  we  have  seen  x)  it  falls 

short  of  that  positive  policy  of  development  which  is  the  most 
effective  means  of  discipline.  Nor  is  it  a  groundless  faith  that, 
if  justice  be  done  to  the  inexhaustible  range  of  appeal  to 
example,  precept,  and  conscience,  the  art  of  Punishment, 
though  never  likely  to  disappear  from  the  earth,  may  take  a 
place  more  creditable  to  human  nature  than  in  these  days 
when  castigation  is  still  all  too  often  believed  to  be  the 
necessary  path  to  virtue. 

Nor  would  it  be  right,  seeing  that  punishment  needs  must 

Some  canons      come>  to  Pass  from  the  subject  without  suggesting 

of  Punish-  some  of  the  canons  by  which  the  application  of 

principles  to  practice  ought  to  be  regulated2. 
The  first  requirement  here  is  to  be  certain  that  the  offence 
has  been  committed.     If  one  were  asked  how 

i.  The  offen- 

der must  be          many  offenders  ought  to  be  suffered  to  go  un- 
punished rather  than  that  one  innocent  person 

should  be  penalised,  there  is  no  answer.     There  is  no  answer 

because  the  two  things  are  incommensurable. 

A  second  requirement  is  discrimination  between  classes  of 
offences         offences  ;  between  sins  of  omission,  for  example, 

ought  to  be  and  sins  of  commission,  or  between  sins  that  are 

primarily  against    the   culprit's  self  and  those 

(bullying  for  instance  or  slander)   that  betray  a  still  deeper 

selfishness,  or  between  offences  against  social  order  and  those 

which  have  a  more  directly  moral  culpability  and  contagion. 

1  pp.  48  and  88. 

2  Cf.  Bentham,  Theory  of  Legislation,  Part  III.  esp.  c.  vi.      The  Choice 
of  Punishments,  in  which,  though  of  course  without  special  reference  to 
education,  the  principles  of  Punishment  are  formulated. 


Punishment  157 

A  third  is  that  the  punishment  must  be  proportionate  to 
the  offence — a  maxim  that  is  soon  said  but  not 

3.  ine  pen- 

so  soon  interpreted,  so  long  as  the  comparative   aity  must  be 
heinousness   of  offences,  and  the  comparative  ProPortlonate» 
grading  of  penalties,  may  well  tax  the  wits  of  the  wisest.     The 
difficulties  are  sufficiently  great  in  criminal  Law  even  though 
Law,   by  reason   of  its   inevitable   roughness   and   generality, 
cannot   go  far  into   consideration  of  individual  desert.     It  is 
ten-fold  greater  in  school  or  home,  where  individual  desert  can 
and  ought  to  be  so  much  more  closely  scrutinised.     The  best 
way  out  perhaps,  here  and  everywhere  else,  is  simply  to  prefer 
the  penalties  that  seem  most  likely  to  induce  repentance. 

This  is  indeed  the  main  justification  of  a  fourth  requisite — 
the   well-known   maxim    that   the    punishment 

,  4-  and  anal- 

ought  to  be  analogous  to  the  offence.     It  must  ogous  to  the 
be  so  related  to  it  that  it  strikes  the  will,  so  to  offence' 
say,  at  the  right  point.     Starve  the  greedy,  humble  the  insolent, 
compel  the  idle  to  work,  or  the  heedless  to  retrace  false  steps 
with  leisurely  care.     Only  thus  will  the  imposition  go  home  to 
the  offender. 

It   is   not   less    reasonable   that    punishments   should    be 
exemplary.     Since  they  needs  must  come,  it  is 
not  enough  that  they  should  open  the  culprit's  plarynd  exem" 
eyes   and   give   him  his  due.     They  may  with 
advantage  be  utilized  as  object-lessons  for  behalf  of  that  large 
class,  the  culprits  in  potentiality. 

This  however  must  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  they  need 
be  severe.  "  Make  an  example  of  you  "  is  apt  to  mean  that ; 
but  in  reality  it  ought  to  mean  rather  the  opposite ;  namely, 
that  few  things  are  of  more  importance  than  that  no  penalty 
should  exceed  the  quantum  that  is  needful  to  vindicate  authority, 
to  stigmatise  the  offence,  to  satisfy  the  whole- 
some craving  that  the  wrong-doer  shall  suffer  for 
his  deeds,  above  all  to  touch  the  conscience  of 
the  offender.  In  this  sense  punishment  ought  to  be  economical^ 


158  Punishment 

or,  in  other  words,  never  heavier  than  to  secure  the  end  in 
view,  be  this  simply  the  preservation  of  law  and  order  or  the 
betterment  of  the  sufferers. 

Not  least  there  is  the  just  requirement  that  punishment 

should,  in  all  possible  cases,  go  hand  in  hand 

indemnity  qu"      w^  msistence  °n  appropriate  indemnity,  so  that 

the  wrong-doer,  in  things  small  or  great,  may  be 

forced  to  repair,  so  far  as  practicable,  the  irreparable  mischief 

which  offence  implies. 

It  is  not,  however,  by  the  application  of  maxims  about 
punishment,  be  they  never  so  carefully  formulated,  that 
character  is  really  made.  For  this  we  must  turn  to  the  great 
positive  resources  which  are  fruitful  at  once  of  development 
and  discipline.  And  amongst  these  of  course  is  Example. 


Example  159 


CHAPTER   XII 

EXAMPLE 

IN  its  earliest  phase  Example  works  through  literal  imi- 
tation.    What  children  see  done,  and  almost  as 
early    what    they    hear    of   as    done,    they    in- 


stinctively  do  likewise.     Born  actors,  each   of  Iite5al  imi- 

them  has  already  in  his  nursery  life  played  many 

parts. 

Much  of  this  is  of  trifling  ethical  significance,  however 
interesting  it  may  be  to  the  psychologist.  It  is  interesting  to 
the  psychologist  because  it  is  here  he  finds  the  beginnings 
of  those  firm  associations  between  impressions  or  ideas  and 
actions,  which  explain  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  in  later  life 
the  bare  idea  of  things  to  be  done  is  followed  almost  auto- 
matically by  the  doing  of  them.  It  is  thus  in  fact  that  the 
will  gradually,  through  the  alliance  of  habit,  acquires  that 
large  store  of  motor-ideas  which  enables  it  with  such  facility 
to  command  the  requisite  neural  and  muscular  movements. 
Direct  ethical  significance,  however,  emerges  only  when  the 
actions  born  of  imitation  are  such  as  may  develop  some 
capacity  or  instinct  that,  through  encouragement  and  exercise, 
may  become  a  virtue.  Of  such  actions  there  is  certainly  no 
lack,  and  with  their  performance,  and  especially  their  frequently 
repeated  performance,  the  moral  influence  of  example  has 
really  begun.  For  somehow,  even  to  the  very  young,  the 
ongoings  of  fellow  human  beings  have  an  inexplicable  interest, 


160  Example 

and  as  this  example  or  that  comes,  in  fact  or  in  story, 
to  be  repeatedly  presented  to  the  mind,  imitation  becomes 
habitual. 

It  is  the  examples  of  the  home  circle  that,  in  the  ordinary 

course  of  things,  are  naturally  first.     But  it  does 

ampiesthat         not   follow   that   they   are    therefore    the  most 

most  power-         effective.     We  can  sympathise  with  children,  if 

fully  work  J 

upon  the  they  frequently  prefer  to  personate  Achilles,  or 

some  other  of  the  heroes  of  Greek  or  Roman 


that  lie  nearest     or   English   story,  rather  than  their  latter-day 
fathers  and  mothers.     It  is  at  any  rate  no  fancy 
that  the  simpler  life  of  early  times  often  finds  readiest  entrance 
into  the  simpler  minds.     But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  not  long 
before  the  examples  of  the  home  circle,  whose  persistent  influ- 
ence J  no  one  need  disparage,  are  recruited  from  those  of  fiction. 
This  is  what  Plato  saw  once  for  all  so  clearly.     For  the 
Platonic  education  does  not  begin  in  the  in- 
fluences  of  "  real  "  life,  but  with  the  tales,  re- 
the  value  of          ligious  or  other,  which  children  learn  at  their 

fiction. 

nurses'  knee,  and  from  those  who,  from  earliest 
years,  speak  to  them  of  gods  or  heroes.  Fiction  there  must 
be.  We  must  educate  to  begin  with  by  a  "lie."  But  then 
the  lie  must  be  an  "  honest  and  noble  lie."  So  that,  whatever 
be  the  liberties  it  may  take  with  fact,  it  must  wear,  beneath 
the  mask  of  imagination,  the  lineaments  of  a  sound  and  well- 
considered  moral  purpose  2. 

This  however  must  not  be  held  to  mean  that  the  moral 

Fiction  must      purpose  need  shine  through.     On  the  contrary, 

have  a  moral        children  are  so  quick   to  detect  a  moral  am- 

buscade  that  above  all  things  the  moral  must 


must  be  con-        from  them  lie  hid.     The  person  from  whom  it 

cealed.  ,.     ,  .  ,    .      , 

must  not  lie  hid  is  he  who  puts  the  story-book 

1  See  p.  103. 

2  A>^«*/fVf  Bk.  n.  377,  and  cf.  414. 


Example  161 

into  youthful  hands.  And  this  for  two  reasons  :  firstly  and 
mainly,  because  of  the  positive  influence  of  wholesome,  honest, 
and  really  great  literature ;  and  secondly,  because  the  best 
index  expurgatorius  is  not  to  be  found  in  a  catalogue  of  the 
books  that  are  not  to  be  read.  Contrariwise.  It  is  the  care- 
fully fostered  love  of  good  fiction  that  will  in  the  long  run  do 
tenfold  more  to  oust  the  tales  of  scandal,  frivolity  and  crime 
than  a  thousand  repressive  Thou-shalt-nots. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  in  this  connection  —  who  that 
knows  the  Republic  of  Plato  can  ever  forget? — that  the  pur- 
veyor of  literature  for  the  young,  however  large  and  catholic 
his  own  appreciations  may  be,  is  not  in  the  same  position  as 
the  genial  lover  and  critic  of  books  who  thinks  first  of  literary 
form  and  art,  and  little  or  not  at  all  of  the  play,  the  novel  or 
the  poem  as  instruments  for  the  nurture  of  the  moral  character. 
There  is  a  good  deal  in  the  permanent  literature  of  the  world, 
as  well  as  in  the  literature  that  is  happily  not  permanent,  which 
is  hardly  appropriate  to  the  school-library  or  the  family  circle. 

The  broad  fact  however  remains  that  we  do  well,  in  a  spirit 
far   removed  from  a  strait-laced  puritanism,  to      Examples 
enrich  the  roll  of  examples  from  Epic,  Romance  ™ho  never 
and  Ballad,  so  that  boy  or  girl  may  learn  to  live  powerfully  in- 
in  the  habitual  company  of  those  creatures  of  the   fluence  life- 
imagination  who,  though  they  never  saw  the  light  of  the  sun, 
may  so  profoundly  influence  life.     One  can  understand  what 
Robert   Chambers  meant  when  he  declared  that  he  "  raised 
statues   in  his  heart"  to  the  story-tellers  who  first  gave  him 
views   of  social   life   beyond    the    small    circle    of  his    natal 
village1.     And  indeed  it  is  not  doubtful,  as  many  a  school- 
master who  has  followed  the  later  lives  of  his  pupils  can  vouch, 
that  the  career  of  many  a  boy  has  been  overmasteringly  shaped 
for  good,  or  for  evil,  by  the  sort  of  fiction  that  has  been  the 
companion  of  early  years.     It  cannot  be  otherwise  so  long  as 

1  Memoir  of  Robert  Chambers,  p.  64,  2nd  edit. 


1 62  Example 

imitation  is  one  of  the  earliest,-  deepest,  and  most  tenacious 
of  human  instincts.  Nor  need  we  limit  these  influences  to 
boyhood.  It  was  Diderot  who,  to  the  surprised  enquiries  of 
friends  who  found  him  in  tears,  replied  that  he  was  weeping 
for  his  friends — his  friends  Pamela,  Clarissa,  Grandison1.  And 
every  reader  of  Wordsworth  knows  how  he  found  unfailing 
refuge  from  the  trivialities,  or  worse,  of  gossip  and  "  personal 
talk  "  by  betaking  himself  to  the  society  of  Una  and  Desde- 
mona,  and  to  the  nobler  loves  and  nobler  cares  bequeathed 
to  him  by  the  poets2. 

And  of  course  we  need  not  limit  ourselves  to  fiction. 
Almost  as  soon  as  the  story-book  comes  the  biography,  'and 
with  the  biography,  the  history,  which  for  the  young,  at 
any  rate,  is  still  mainly  but  a  gallery  of  biographies.  And 
Appeal  to  what  economy  there  is  in  the  use  of  these  ! 
example  more  For  when  we  wish  to  bring  home  some  lesson 

persuasive  -  -  f 

than  exhor-          of  courage,  of  generosity,  of  mercy,  it  is  not 
necessary   to   discourse   at  length  about  them. 
"There  !    that  is  courage,  that,  generosity,  that,  mercy."     This 
is  enough. 

It  is  not,  however,  to  be  supposed  that  all  this  will  come 

of  literal   imitation.     For   the  literal  imitation 

of  thcfspirit  of      °f  examples    has   but  a  limited  reign,  and  in- 

an  example  is       evitably  passes  into  something  higher.     All  imi- 

of  more  im-  ......  ... 

portance  than       tation,  all  imitation  at  any  rate  where  the  imitator 

is  human,  is,  in  fact,  something  of  a  discovery. 

It  is  not  the  mechanical  work  of  a  copyist.     For 

when   imitation   passes   into  act,  there  comes  the  experience 

of  what  it  feels  like  to  do  the  act.     And,  in  the  light  of  this 

new  experience,  the  example  is  henceforth  regarded  with  new 

and  more  penetrating  eyes.     There  is  imputed  to  it  a  similar 

inward  experience,  and  thus  the  world  of  motive  begins  to 


1  Cf.   Morley's  Diderot,  p.  261. 

2  See  the  four  Sonnets  on  Personal  Talk,  Works,  iv.  219  (Moxon). 


Example  163 

be  revealed  to  conjecture  and  interpretation.  The  result 
follows.  Imitation  deepens.  It  does  not  stop  at  the  actions 
that  are  overt  and  visible.  It  strives  to  reproduce  what  it 
divines  to  be  the  spirit  in  which  the  imitated  acts  are  done. 
So  that  the  "  hero,"  be  he  the  hero  of  romance  or  only  the 
common-clay  hero  of  actual  life,  begins  to  live  a  second  life 
not  merely  in  the  acts  but  in  the  soul  of  his  "  worshipper."  x 

This  marks  an  immense  onward  step.  It  gives  imitation 
a  vastly  wider  range.  For  it  enables  it  to  profit  by  many  an 
example  whose  value  lies  not  in  the  precise  manner  of  action 
but  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  action  is  done.  We  see  this 
in  the  perennial  influence  of  examples  drawn  from  ages  far 
remote.  We  have  seen  already  that  it  is  not 

3  Hence  the 

those   who   are   nearest   in   circumstances   and  value  of  ex- 
externals  that  most  powerfully  fasten  upon  the 


imaginations  of  the  young.  Rather  is  it  the  rally  »mi- 
Homeric  hero,  the  viking,  the  crusader,  the 
knight-errant,  the  voyager,  the  Indian  chief,  the  castaway. 
And  though  these,  and  many  another,  have  their  first  tribute 
in  the  "  make-believe  "  that  needs  must  reproduce  what  it 
admires,  the  time  comes  round  —  one  may  hope  it  does  not 
come  too  soon  —  when  this  literal  imitation  begins  to  be  childish 
and.  absurd.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  examples  need 
forthwith  be  discarded.  All  that  need  happen  is  that  now  it 
is  the  spirit  they  embody  that  begins  to  work  in  the  imitator  — 
the  spirit  of  daring,  fidelity,  endurance,  adventure,  valour.  In 
a  word,  the  cherished  examples  are  neither  discarded  nor 
reproduced  in  the  letter  :  they  are  imitated  in  their  spirit. 

It  is  necessary  that  this  should  be  so,  because  if  it  were 
otherwise  our  allegiance  to  examples,  however  illustrious, 
would  be  anything  but  the  path  to  goodness.  The  very  nature 
of  goodness  forbids  a  slavish  literal  imitation.  For  a  good 

-1  Professor  Baldwin  has  thrown  much  light  upon  Imitation  in  his  Social 
and  Ethical  Interpretations  in  Mental  Development. 


164  Example 

man  is,  above  all  things  else,  a  genuine  man.  He  is  "  original," 
The  highest  in  the  sense  that  he  is  sincere.  And  his  every 

iUus^ricms  1O°k>  W°rd>  §esture>  act>  SO  far  frOm  bemg  Copied 

examples  is  to  and  merely  dramatic,  are  the  direct  living  ex- 
s^cer?tyhoefr  pression  of  the  moral  spirit  within.  This  is 
sPirit-  his  charm  and  fascination.  If,  then,  we  would 

imitate  goodness,  we  must  not  fail  to  be  like  it  in  its  essence, 
in  its  genuineness,  in  its  "originality."  For  it  is  the  last 
tribute  to  offer  anyone  we  admire  —  to  set  ourselves  to  mas- 
querade in  his  clothing.  Nor  will  it  mend  matters  though 
the  examples  thus  pedantically  copied  be  of  the  noblest. 
Good  for  us,  if  we  can,  to  set  ourselves  in  imagination  in  the 
place  of  the  heroes  or  the  saints  of  other  days  :  not  so  good 
if  we  try,  by  a  literal  imitation,  to  transplant  them  into  our 
own  days.  The  one  loyal  tribute  is  to  act,  not  as  they  acted, 
but  as  we  believe  they  would  act  under  our  altered  circum- 
stances. It  is  only  as  thus  used  that  examples  can  yield  up 
the  whole  of  their  vast  influence.  As  precise  precedents  they 
are  of  subordinate  value.  For  their  ways  are  not  our  ways, 
and  in  the  effort  to  make  them  so,  we  do  but  make  ourselves 
pedantic  and  ridiculous.  This  much  truth  at  all  events  there  is 
in  the  startling  warning  of  Emerson,  "  Never  imitate.  *  *  *  That 
which  each  can  do  best  none  but  his  Maker  can  teach  him."  1 

Thus  liberally  construed,  examples  tell  in  at  least  three 
conspicuous  directions. 

^  (T)     I*1  *ne  ^rst  place,  they  serve  to  purify 


influence  of          an(j  to  elevate  our  moral  estimates  both  of  men 

Examples.  .  •»«•      i  •.'>'•«•  •• 

and  actions.  Much  moral  failing,  it  is  to  be 
remembered,  is  due  not  to  inability  to  see  the  conditions  under 

which  we  ought  to  act  but  to  inability  to  weigh 
rify  and  elevate  them.2  A  stingy  man,  for  example,  or  a  stingy 
the  moral  boyf  niay  see  quite  clearly  in  a  given  case  that 

his  money  will  give  pleasure  or  do  good.     But, 

1  Essay  on  Self-reliance,  Works,  vol.  u.  p.  67  (Macmillan  &  Co.). 


Example  165 

even  as  he  sees  this,  the  thought  of  his  five  pounds  or  his 
five  shillings,  and  what  they  might  procure  for  himself,  rises 
up  before  him  with  such  vividness,  that  it  dominates  all  else, 
conjures  up  a  strangely  distorting  medium  between  him  and 
his  kindly  projects,  and  ends  by  chilling  his  benevolence  to 
zero.  Suppose  however  it  be  his  good  fortune,  still  on  the 
brink  of  this  mean  illusion,  to  light  upon  some  rare  type 
of  generosity.  Will  it  not  alter  his  comparative  estimates  of 
things  ?  Will  it  not  bring  him  even  to  wonder  at  the  distorted 
valuations  that  threaten  to  make  his  money  bulk  so  large,  and 
the  delight  or  relief  his  money  might  give  to  others  so 
miserably  small  ?  It  is  in  this  way  that  an  example,  if  it  lives 
habitually  in  our  minds,  can  come  almost  to  change  for  us 
the  very  meaning  of  propositions.  Telling  the  truth,  honouring 
father  and  mother,  paying  debts  —  they  are  generalities  on  all 
our  lips,  but  they  take  on  a  new  significance,  and  carry  altered 
estimates,  after  we  have  once  really  known  even  a  single  type 
who  has  given  them  just  and  unselfish  embodiment. 

(2)    It  goes  closely  with  this  that  an  example  is  something 
of  a  revelation  to  us  of  ourselves.     Not  least      (b)  They  re_ 
when  it  is  so  far  removed  from  us  that  our  first  veal  to  us  th« 

,    £     .  .      .  .  possibilities 

and  fitting  emotion  in  its  presence  is  reverence  Of  our  own 
and  humility.  For  the  spectacle  of  a  noble  life  moral  natur«- 
is  never  simply  a  thing  to  wonder  at,  as  we  might  wonder  at 
a  work  of  art,  or  at  the  strength  or  grace  of  an  animal.  It  is 
the  unobstructed  manifestation  in  loftier  mode  of  that  same 
moral  spirit  of  which  we  are  aware  as  the  best  thing  in  our- 
selves. Immeasurably  superior,  the  example  is  yet  not  alien. 
It  is  kin.  As  the  phrase  goes,  we  "identify  ourselves  with 
it "  :  thereby  hazarding  the  hope  that  what  it  is  we  have  it 
in  us  at  least  to  strive  to  be.  In  the  light  of  it,  our  failings 
draw  upon  them  a  new  detestation.  For  they  begin  to  wear 
the  aspect  of  obstructions  —  obstructions  which  are  frustrating 
a  principle  of  moral  life  capable  of  far  fuller  realisation  than 
anything  it  has  yet  attained  in  our  unworthy  best.  It  is  thus. 


1 66  Example 

as  even  Kant  is  constrained  to  admit,  that  examples  serve 
for  encouragement.1 

For,  as  the  Greek  philosophers  were  never  weary  of  in- 
sisting, the  virtues  are  one.  They  are  not  mere 
why  we  iden-  gifts,  bestowed  here,  withheld  there,  by  caprice 
w\th°the"\ves  °^  f°rtune-  For  however  diverse  they  may  appear 
of  our  neigh-  to  be  as  we  range  through  the  different  ranks, 
classes,  occupations  of  life,  the  seeing  and  sym- 
pathetic eye  may  trace,  underneath  all  diversities,  one  and 
the  same  moral  spirit  striving  manifoldly  to  vitalise  human 
nature. 

Nor  is  this  mode  of  influence  limited  to  those  cases  where 
the  example  is  our  moral  superior.  That  same  common 
humanity,  that  same  common  moral  spirit,  that  emboldens 
us  to  see  in  the  saint  our  own  human  nature  transfigured, 
enables  us  also  to  put  a  deeper  and  a  more  sympathetic 
meaning  into  the  lives  of  our  ordinary  neighbours.  They  may 
differ  in  their  lot,  in  their  fortunes,  in  their  gifts.  But  these 
things  do  not  cut  us  off  from  them.  That  poor  man,  that 
rich  man,  that  beggar,  that  noble  —  what  are  they  but  our- 
selves, our  own  moral  nature  that  we  know  so  well,  only 
under  altered  circumstances  ? 2 

It  is  here  that  Fi'ction,  building  upon  this  recognition  of 
Fiction  may  man  by  man,  can  again  render  signal  service. 

tribute  to° this  For  Jt  is  one  of  tne  Prer°gatives  °f  tne  writer 
revelation  of  of  Fiction  to  emancipate  obstructed  human  na~ 
possibilities  of  ture  n*om  tne  baffling  limitations  of  fact,  thereby 
man-  revealing  it  to  us  in  the  transfiguring  surround- 

ings of  favouring  ideal  situation.  Cases  are  common  enough 
in  actual  life  where  a  man,  after  long  struggle  and  obstruction, 
has  at  last  "grasped  the  skirts  of  happy  chance,"  and  won 
his  way  into  the  life  that  suits  him.  "Now,"  we  say,  "he 

1  Metaptysic  of  Ethics,  Sect,  n.,  see  infra,  p.  139. 

2  This  point  is  dealt  with  in  a  chapter   on  Fraternity  in  Ethics  of 
Citizenship,  p.  26,  3rd  ed.  (MacLehose  &  Sons). 


Example  167 

has  a  chance  of  showing  what  is  in  him."  What  Fortune  can 
thus  do  sometimes,  the  writer  of  fiction  can  do  always.  By 
setting  human  nature  in  the  sunshine  of  visionary  circum- 
stance, he  can,  so  to  say,  give  human  nature  its  chance,  and 
shew  us  what  it  has  in  it  to  become.  There  is  an  analogy 
here  between  Fiction  and  those  physical  sciences 
to  which  it  is  often  too  rashly  supposed  to  be  twe"n  potion 


wholly  alien.  When  a  chemist,  for  example,  and  Physical 
wishes  to  shew  us  what  an  acid  or  an  alkali  is, 
he  exhibits  it  and  its  behaviour  under  the  enlightening,  arti- 
ficial, conditions  of  experiment.  By  a  similar  artifice  imagi- 
nation, in  its  laboratory  of  fiction,  reveals  to  us  what  the 
soul  of  man  is  by  shewing  how  it  thinks,  feels,  wills,  acts, 
under  the  carefully  devised  conditions  of  fictitious  circum- 
stances. William  Godwin  once  wrote  a  story  in  which  he 
avowed  the  intention  of  "  mixing  human  feelings  and  passions 
with  incredible  situations."1  We  may  quarrel  with  his  ma- 
nipulation :  we  must  not  censure  his  attempt.  If  a  chemist 
can  better  exhibit  to  us  the  properties  of  phosphorus  by 
burning  it  in  an  artificially  devised  atmosphere  of  oxygen, 
is  there  not  a  chemistry  of  the  human  passions,  concerned 
with  the  behaviour  of  men  under  circumstances  expressly 
fabricated  to  call  out  just  those  passions  which  we  wish  to 
study?  The  result  is  not  amusement  only.  Floods  of  light 
have  been  in  this  way  let  in  upon  moral  truth  :  so  that  the 
men  and  women  of  Scott  and  Shakespeare  have  become  to 
many  of  us  more  real  than  those  we  know  in  actual  life. 
Hence  the  wisdom  of  the  remark  that  illusion  is  not  delusion. 
There  can  be  no  delusion  where  genius,  by  this  great  artifice 
of  fiction,  brings  what  is  best  and  greatest  in  man  into  the 
very  situations  that  make  the  revelation  most  complete.  Thus 
it  comes  that  those  creatures  of  the  imagination,  though  they 

1  St  Leon.  The  story  is  an  attempt  to  work  out  the  effects  upon  human 
ties  and  relationships  which  might  be  expected  to  follow  from  the  possession 
of  the  philosopher's  stone  and  the  elixir  vitae. 


1  68  Example 

never  lived  "under  the  canopy"  themselves,  have  helped 
others  to  live,  thereby  giving  to  men  what  they  themselves, 
retainers  only  of  a  poet's  or  novelist's  mind,  never  had. 

(3)    In   these   ways   examples   avail    to    enlighten.     But 
they  likewise  quicken. 

It  is  the  trite  difficulty  in  moral  education 


the  moral  that  these  two  things,  light  and  stimulus,  may 

be  divorced.  To  arguments,  precepts,  exhor- 
tations, people  listen.  They  assent.  They  promise.  They  do 
not  perform.  It  is  otherwise  when  the  appeal  is  to  example. 
For  a  type  being  concrete,  kindred  to  ourselves,  impressive, 
easy  to  be  apprehended,  comes  home  to  us  and  stirs  the 
feelings  that  lie  close  to  action.  The  precept  is  less  easy  to 
hold  and  to  bind.  Hence  the  need  of  devices  to  retain  it, 
vain  repetitions  and  the  like.  But  the  image  tarries  with  us, 
and  by  its  prolonged  presence  touches  the  springs  of  action 
when  a  definition,  or  a  precept,  or  a  command,  may  stir 
never  a  pulse.  Hence  "  hero-worship  "  has  been 

The  claims 

of  "hero-  magnified  as  a  more  powerful  lever  for  the  up- 

worship."  lifting  of  mankind  than  all  the  wisest  words  of 

all  the  sages.1  Not  without  reason.  It  is  one  test  of  a  moral 
force  to  confront  it  with  the  difficult,  and  indeed  the  desperate 
cases.  If  it  be  these  that  test  the  physician's  art,  it  is  not 
otherwise  here  in  the  larger  art  of  life,  when  we  ask  how  the 
coward  is  to  be  made  brave  or  the  profligate  pure.  And  the 
answer  of  the  apostles  of  "  hero-worship  "  is  that  the  spectacle 
of  a  devoted  or  a  pure  life  can  awaken  the  passions  by  whose 
expulsive  power  even  these  dire  vices  can  be  cast  out.  Phi- 
losophy itself,  after  a  fashion,  bears  its  witness  to  the  same 
truth.  Did  not  the  man  Socrates  inspire  his  followers,  and 
this  even  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  strove  above  all  things 

1  Cf.  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus,  Bk.  in.  c.  vii.  (Libr.  Ed.).  "  In  which 
fact,  that  Hero-  Worship  exists,  has  existed,  and  will  for  ever  exist  univer- 
sally among  mankind,  mayest  thou  discern  the  corner-stone  of  living-rock, 
whereon  all  Polities  for  the  remotest  time  may  stand  secure." 


Example  169 

by  his  well-known  '  irony/  to  sink  his  personality,  and  teach  as 
one  not  having  authority  ?  And  have  not  Cynicism,  Epicurean- 
ism, Stoicism,  wrought  themselves,  more  even  than  the  wisdom 
of  Aristotle,  into  the  imaginations  and  the  lives  of  men  ?  The 
reason  is  plain.  To  doctrine  they  added  type  —  the  Cynic  type, 
the  Epicurean  type,  the  Stoic  type.  And  the  type  has  found 
entrance  when  precept  or  argument  might  have  knocked  for 
admission  long  and  in  vain. 

"  For  Wisdom  dealt  with  mortal  powers, 

Where  truth  in  closest  words  shall  fail, 
When  truth  embodied  in  a  tale 
Shall  enter  in  at  lowly  doors." 1 

"  Example,"  says  Burke,  "  is  the  school  of  mankind,  and 
they  will  learn  at  no  other." 2  And  the  exaggeration — for  exag- 
geration it  is  —  may  at  least  be  pardoned.  The  facts  are  so 
strong.  "Perhaps  the  truth  is  that  there  has  scarcely  been 
a  town  in  any  Christian  country  since  the  time  of  Christ " 
(and  may  we  not  add,  "or  before  it"?)  "where  a  century 
has  passed  without  exhibiting  a  character  of  such  elevation 
that  his  mere  presence  has  shamed  the  bad  and  made  the 
good  better,  and  has  been  felt  at  times  like  the  presence  of 
God  Himself."3 


Limitations  of  Example 

Yet  to  the  influence  of  Example  there  are  most  specific 
limits  —  limits  inevitable  because  bound  up  with      The  most 
what,  in  its  very  essence,  an  example  is.     For  typical  of  ex- 

,     .  ^         a   J.-i-  amples  has 

an  example  is  concrete,  a  real  or  fictitious  person  inevitable 
with  personal  characteristics,  and  as  such  subject  imitations. 
of  necessity  to  the  limitations  of  time,  place,  and  circumstance. 

1  In  Memoriam,  xxxvi. 

2  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,  I.,  Works,  v.  223. 

8  Seeley's  Ecce  Homo,  c.  xiv.      The  enthusiasm  of  humanityt  p.  161 
(20th  ed.). 


1 70  Example 

This  holds  even  of  those  we  canonise  as  types.      Socrates, 
it  is  ^  ^au^  Marcus  Aurelius,  St  Louis,  St  Bernard, 

more  or  less  Erasmus,  Luther,  Loyola,  Washington,  Goethe, 
Gordon  —  are  they  not  all  great  types  just  be- 
cause Time  can  extinguish  neither  them,  nor  their  limitations? 
There  is  danger  here;  and  it  is  greatest  in  proportion  as 
our  imaginations  and  our  allegiance  are  carried  captive.  The 
type  is  always  limited.  It  is  Greek,  Hebrew,  Roman,  me- 
diaeval, English.  But,  by  its  mastery  over  us,  it  may  come 
to  hide  the  fact  that  the  moral  life  is  a  larger  thing  than  any 
single  type  can  embody. 

This  risk  obviously  becomes  more  serious  in  proportion 
as  the  chosen  example  is  of  a  humbler  kind.  Who  has  not 
seen  boys  and  girls  devote  themselves  to  "hero-worships," 
which  in  six  months'  time  were  over-worn?  And  with  what 
feelings  would  most  of  us  face  the  sentence  to  return  to  old 
allegiances?  They  have  had  their  day:  they  have  ceased 
to  be.  And  this,  not  because  we  have  proved  fickle,  but 
because  they  have  proved  finite. 

Hence  it  comes  that  a  life  patterned  wholly  on  examples, 

Consequent       especially  if  these  be  not  conspicuously  typical, 

defects  of  the       is  apt  to  come  short  in  either  of  two   ways. 

life  patterned  . 

wholly  on  Either    it    may,   in    fragmentary   fashion,   live 

examples.  through  a  series  of  inconsistent  admirations  and 

imitations :  or,  if  it  be  more  tenacious  of  its  attachments,  it 
may  find  itself  in  the  plight  of  striving  to  entertain  a  company 
of  guests  diverse  to  incongruity.  Nothing,  at  all  events,  can 
be  more  obvious  than  that  the  more  examples  a  man  admires, 
the  more  must  he  realise  the  limitations  of  each.  And  indeed 
it  is  thus  that  the  morality  of  example  suggests  its  own  limi- 
tations never  so  much  as  when  it  is  most  catholic. 

A  second  qualification  has  its  source  in  the  limita- 
tions not  of  the  example  but  of  the  admirer.  For  there  is 
a  large  class  of  persons  so  constituted  that  whatever  makes 
demands  upon  the  imagination,  as  Example  does,  can  find 


Example  1  7  1 

access  to  their  minds  only  with  much   difficulty.     They  are 
the  unfortunates  to  whom  the  whole  great  world      2  It  makes 
of  fiction  is  closed.     "Art,"  it  has  been  said,   demands 
"would    need    no    commentators,   if   it    were  always  met"° 
thoroughly  competent  to  tell  its  own  story."  1  uP°n  the  ima- 

1     J  ginations  of 

But  it  is  not  Art  that  is  incompetent.  It  is  that  those  to  be 
large  section  of  the  world  who,  by  lack  of  influenced- 
imaginative  sympathy,  can  so  feebly  apprehend  artistic  crea- 
tions, that  they  must  needs  be  taken  by  the  hand  by 
these  middlemen  of  the  intellectual  world,  the  critic,  and  the 
expositor.  Some  of  them  refuse  to  follow  even  then.  Nor 
need  the  example  be  born  of  fiction  to  be  thus  unintelligible. 
It  is  enough  that  it  be  removed  from  us  in  time,  place,  and 
circumstance.  And  there  is  many  a  teacher  of  Christianity 
itself  who  could  tell  us  that,  notwithstanding  all  the  resources 
of  poetry,  painting,  sculpture,  allegory,  it  remains  one  of  the 
hardest  of  tasks  to  bring  the  world  to  enter,  with  a  real  insight, 
into  the  record  of  the  life  of  its  Founder.  This  is  enough  to 
suggest  that  we  must  look  beyond  Example  —  unless,  indeed, 
we  are  prepared  to  say  that  people  need  have  no  morality  if 
they  have  no  imaginations. 

A  still  more  fundamental  limitation  remains;  none  other 
than  the  central   fact   that   Example   finds  its 

-  ,  .  ,        3-  It  pre- 

true  place  as  an  instrument  for  evoking  moral  supposes  in 


possibilities,  and  must  not  therefore  be  exag- 
gerated  into  a  means,  still  less  the  sole  means,  sive  principle 
of  implanting  these.  We  must  here  follow  Kant.  c  loral  life' 
"  Respect  for  a  person,"  says  that  greatest  of  all  decriers  of 
Example,  "  is  properly  only  respect  for  the  law  (of  honesty,  &c.) 
of  which  he  gives  us  an  example."2  The  dictum  is  startling; 
and  indeed  it  is  manifestly  false,  if  it  be  construed  as  meaning 
that  we  withhold  respect  for  persons  till  we  have  come  to  a 
consciousness  of  laws,  whether  of  honesty  or  veracity,  or 

1  Thomson,  Outlines  of  the  Laws  of  Thought,  p.  33. 
*Metaphysic  of  Ethics,  Sect.  I.,  note. 


172  Example 

courage,  or  of  any  other  of  the  duties.  Is  it  not  a  common- 
place that  the  laws  of  morality  usually  make  themselves  known 
first  in  a  concrete  and  individualised  embodiment?  Yet  a 
substantial  truth  remains.  All  respect  for  persons  involves 
presuppositions ;  and  the  types,  even  the  most  splendid,  which 
appeal  to  our  admiration,  do  their  work  upon  us  because  they 
evoke  the  response  of  a  moral  spirit  that  is  already  implicit 
in  our  consciousness.  In  Platonic  phrase  there  must  be  "  an 
eye  of  the  soul "  to  recognise  the  example  when  it  sees  it. 
in  the  absence  Else  might  all  the  beauty  of  life  pass  unseen  be- 
of  which  the  fore  blind  eyes,  and  all  its  music  go  wandering 

example  could  .         ,     .,     '     .    ..      r  ~.     ,. 

not  be  inter.  unheeded  past  deaf  ears.  Ordinary  experience 
preted  aright.  illustrates  this.  For  is  it  not  matter  of  obser- 
vation that  even  the  cleverest  of  scoundrels  is  but  a  fool,  when 
he  tries  to  read  the  character  of  an  honest  man,  and  blunders 
like  any  simpleton  by  putting  his  own  mean  and  villainous 
constructions  upon  it?  And  do  we  not  know,  contrariwise, 
that  an  honest  man,  even  when  he  has  no  exceptional  intel- 
lectual acumen,  is  quick  in  discerning  good  in  his  neighbour? 
The  reason  is  manifest.  It  is  because  the  one  has,  and  the 
other  has  not,  the  clue  within  himself — the  clue  that  is  found 
in  the  presence  of  the  indwelling  moral  spirit  from  which  good- 
ness finds  spontaneous  recognition  and  welcome.  For  good- 
ness is  not  a  thing  that  can  be  seen  in  other  men.  Its 
presence,  or  absence,  is  always  matter  of  interpretation,  an 
inference  from  what  they  do  or  say.  Nor  can  we  ever  hope 
to  interpret  aright,  unless  there  be  within  our  own  breasts, 
as  feeling  or  idea,  that  same  moral  spirit  from  which  we  believe 
the  interpreted  word  or  action  to  proceed.  Hence  a  certain 
justification  even  of  Kant's  sweeping  assertion  that  "  imitation 
finds  no  place  at  all  in  morality." J  It  is  a  needed  reminder 

1  Metaphysic  of  Ethics,  Sect.  II.  "  Nor  could  anything  be  more  fatal 
to  morality  than  that  we  should  wish  to  derive  it  from  examples.  For 
every  example  of  it  that  is  set  before  me  must  be  first  tested  by  principles 
of  morality,  whether  it  is  worthy  to  serve  as  an  original  example,  i.e»  as  a 


Example  173 

that,  much  as  example  may  do  for  us,  it  cannot  implant  the 
moral  spirit,  because  its  efficacy  presupposes  in  the  onlooker 
that  capacity  of  emotional  and  intellectual  response  without 
which  there  can  be  no  real  perception  of  moral  quality  in  that 
which  he  beholds.  There  is  an  ancient  principle  in  philosophy 
to  the  effect  that  "  like  is  known  by  like."  It  is  true  here. 
If  there  be  human  beings  without  any  potentiality  of  moral 
life  already  within  them,  the  spectacle  of  even 

"  that  one  society  on  earth 
The  noble  living  and  the  noble  dead," 

would  not  avail  them.  It  would  only  bring  to  light  more 
unmistakeably  the  extent  of  their  moral  incapacity. 

Rightly  regarded,  this  is  not  a  discouraging  doctrine,  though 
at  first  sight  it  might  seem   to   be   so.     It   of     Hence  this 
course  suggests  the  final  limitation  to  the  edu-  final  limitation 
cative  influence  of  Example.     Yet  this  is  a  limi-   mayXfurnish  a 
tation  to  which  we  may  well  reconcile  ourselves,  Proof  of  the   . 

.      .  ,      moral  strength 

because  we  can  find  in  it  evidence  of  the  strength  Of  the  indi- 
and  independent  vitality  of  the  individual  life.   vidual- 
After  all  it  would  be  a  poor  service,  if  the  great  examples  of 
the  earth  could  only  hypnotise  us  into  a  blind  and  involuntary 
devotion  to  them.     We  have  more  to  give,  as  they  have  more 
to  ask.     And  we  give  this  when,  in  the  very  act  of  loyal  sur- 
render, we  assert  that  independent   principle   of  moral   life 
which  constitutes  our  ultimate   claim   to  an  absolute   moral 
worth.1 

pattern,  but  by  no  means  can  it  authoritatively  furnish  the  conception  of 
morality.  Even  the  Holy  One  of  the  Gospels  must  first  be  compared  with 
our  ideal  of  moral  perfection  before  we  can  recognise  him  as  such.  *  *  * 
Example  finds  no  place  at  all  in  morality,  and  examples  serve  only  for 
encouragement."  (Abbott's  trans.) 

1  Cf.  Kant,  Metaphysic  of  Ethics,  Section  I.  "  Nothing  can  possibly  be 
conceived  in  the  world,  or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good  without 
qualification,  except  a  good  will. 


i/4  Example 

A  similar  line  of  remark  applies  when  that  which  is  held 
up  to  us  is  not  a  single  life,  but  an  imaginative  ideal  of  social 
relations,  such  as  great  minds  have  sometimes  pictured,  or 
such  as  most  of  us  picture  to  ourselves  at  times,  even  though 
it  may  only  take  the  form  of  more  cheerful  surroundings  and 
more  congenial  occupations. 

The  superiority  of  a  social  type  lies  in  its  comprehensive- 
Tho  .  a  ness.  It  can  better  embody  the  many-sidedness 
social  type  can  of  duty  and  endeavour.  It  exhibits  the  duties 
of  life  sketched  on  a  larger  canvas.  And  if  a 


type  embody        type  of  this  kind  come  from  the  mind  of  genius, 

the  many- 

sidedness  of  its  value  does  not  really  turn  upon  the  question 
duty,  whether  it  is  ever  likely  to  be  literally  realised  in 

this  world.  The  duties  which  it  will  embody  —  self-control, 
or  courage,  or  love  of  truth,  or  justice  —  will  remain  of  perma- 
nent value  and  applicability  under  social  conditions  wholly 
different.  It  is  in  this  aspect  it  ought  ever  to  be  regarded, 
and  not  in  the  vain  hope  of  rinding  in  it  a  map  for  the 
guidance  of  the  details  of  conduct.  For  this  would  be 
just  as  unreasonable  as  to  estimate  an  individual  example 
by  its  nearness  to  ourselves  in  time,  place,  and  circum- 
stance. 

Yet  the  same  limitations  cling  to  the  social  type  which 
we  have  seen  to  be  of  the  essence  of  the  type 
*nat  *s  individual.  It  is  still  concrete,  and  as 
limitations.  such  partakes  inevitably  of  the  limitations  of 
the  place  and  time  that  produced  it.  Even  Plato  is  an 
instance.  He  fashioned  an  ideal  state  on  which  men  were 
to  pattern  their  lives.  He  wrote  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  universal 
type.  But  even  he  who  runs  as  he  reads  can  see  that  it  was 
Greek  to  the  core.  But  the  greater  limitation  is  the  other. 
No  man  ever  yet  drew  in  the  first  life-breath  of  the  moral 
spirit  from  the  spectacle  of  the  greatest  Utopia  that  it  has 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  imagine.  There  must  first  be 
within  him  that  which  no  ideal  can  implant.  And  it  is  for  this 


Example  175 

reason  that  even  faultless  outward  conformity  to  the  noblest  of 
social  ideals  would  be  a  miserable  substitute  for  the  freely 
given  admiration,  and  the  spontaneous  loyalty,  which  are 
at  once  root  and  fruit  of  the  moral  independence  of  the  in- 
dividual. 

It  may  be  added  that  this  admiration  of  social  Utopias  has 
its   own  peculiar   dangers.      One   of    them   is 

.      .  .  Theadmira- 

pedantry.     Again  and  again  in  the  history  of  the  tion  of  social 
world  men  have  set  themselves  to  mould  their  ^^p™*7 
lives  after  some  social  pattern  far  removed  from  verted  (a)  to 
their  day.     It  was  so  with  our  own  Puritans  and  pe 
Covenanters,  who  carried  into  their  councils  and  battlefields 
the  precedents  of  the  Old   Testament,  reading   their   Bibles, 
as  Sterling  said,  in  the  flash  of  their  pistol  shots.     It  was  so 
also  with  some  of  the  enthusiasts   of  the   Renaissance   who 
laboured   to  pattern   themselves   upon  the   Classical   model ; 
and  with  the  French  Revolutionists  who  must  needs  set  them- 
selves to  re-enact,  under  far  other  skies,  the  achievements  of 
Roman  "  freedom."     The  same  thing  happens  in  lesser  ways, 
as  often  as  men  or  women  fall  in  love  with  some  plan  of  life 
drawn  upon  the  clouds  of  the  past  or  the  future,  and  brood 
upon  it  till  they  are  betrayed  into  follies  or  fanaticisms.     Such 
persons  know  well  how  to  insist ;  the  lesson  they  never  learn 
is  when  to  desist. 

The  other  danger  is  day-dreaming.     There  is  an  indolent 
and  improvident  cheerfulness  which  is  content 
to  feed  on  a  diet  of  visionary  schemes ;  and  it  drea°ming  *y~ 
is  a  faculty  (or  a  failing)  which  often  serves  to 
carry  its  possessor  lightly  through  much  that  is  irritating,  dull, 
or  hideous  in  the  actual  life  around  him.     At  least  it  is  an 
anodyne.     But  its  weakness  is  disclosed  in  the  hour  of  action. 
It  is  so  easy,  when  the  first  sod  of  a  difficult  duty  has  to  be 
cut,  to  turn   aside   and   indulge  in  easy  imaginings   of  some 
fresh  project.    And  so  these  builders  of  castles  in  the  air  grow 
old,  cheerful  to  the  end,  cheerful  —  and  ineffectual. 


1 76  Example 

When  all  is  said,  the  conclusion  must  be  faced  that  edu- 
cation through  type,  whether  individual  type  or  social,  is  by 
Education         the  very  laws  of  imagination  doomed  to  limi- 
throughtype,       tation.     Let  us  not   conceal   it  from   ourselves 

whether  indi-  .  .  .......  , 

viduai  or  serial  that,  in  all  its  work,  the  imagination  is  engaged 
type,  finds  its  fa  something  of  an  unconscious  intellectual  fraud, 
the  very  nature  By  its  very  nature  it  presents  and  can  only  pre- 
of  irnagi-Ulty  sen*  wna^  is  in  some  measure  concrete,  finite, 
nation.  limited.  Such  are  the  very  conditions  of  imagi- 

native presentment,  even  when  it  is  presentment  of  the  truth. 
And  there  is  no  fraud  in  this.  The  "  fraud  "  only  comes  when 
the  concrete,  finite,  limited  picture  is  regarded  as  if  it  were 
the  whole  truth.  And  from  this  "  fraud  "  it  is  hard  to  escape. 
The  artist  in  biography,  history,  or  fiction,  is  never  more 
entirely  honest,  never  truer  to  himself,  than  when  he  is 
guiltiest.  For  just  as  he  is  true  to  himself  must  he  paint  his 
picture  with  such  charm  and  finish,  such  warmth  and  glow, 
that  as  we  look  at  it,  we  are  prone  to  forget  all  else  besides. 
We  forget,  in  other  words,  that  his  picture  is  but  a  fragment 
of  life  rent  away  from  its  context  in  the  larger 
world  of  experience.  For  though  (as  we  have 


a  part  for  the        seen   above)    he   may   tell   us    the   truth,   and 

whole.  ,  ' 

nothing  but  the  truth,  he  will  not,  he  never  can, 
tell  us  the  whole  truth.  Hence,  from  the  nursery  tale  to  the 
epic,  his  strength  and  his  weakness  :  his  strength  in  glorifying 
aspects,  phases,  elements  of  human  life  and  human  nature  :  his 
weakness  in  doing  this  in  such  a  fashion,  "  marrying  gracious 
lies  to  the  mind  of  him  who  reads  them,"  as  Cervantes  has  it, 
as  to  beguile  us  into  a  forgetfulness  of  how  much  else  there 
is  in  the  world  beyond  the  limited  completeness  of  his  fas- 
cinating picture.1 

1  The  aspects  or  elements  of  Life  which  Imagination  selects  and  gathers 
up  in  its  synthesis  may,  of  course,  be  many.  They  may  also  be  supremely 
important  and  inspiring.  Thus  Imagination  may  lead  us  towards  truth, 


Example  177 

For  this,  if  for  no  other  reason,  we  may  suspect  that  there 
is  room  enough  to  supplement  the  morality  that  rests  upon 
actual  or  imaged  Type  by  that  which  looks  to  Precept. 

because  it  may  involve  a  great  advance  from  the  limitation,  the  onesided- 
ness,  the  abstractness  which  ever  cling  to  ordinary  or  common-sense  views 
of  life.  Fiction  may,  in  this  sense,  be  far  truer  than  so-called  Fact.  Yet 
there  remains  room  for  the  criticism  in  the  text.  Spinoza  hit  the  point 
exactly  when  he  urged  that  errors,  or  rather  limitations,  due  to  "  abstrac- 
tion "  (i.e.  onesidedness  and  incompleteness  of  view)  are  never  so  hard  to 
avoid  as  when  they  enlist  the  alliance  of  imagery. 


178  Precept 


CHAPTER   XIII 
PRECEPT 

IF  the  morality  of  Type  has  been  treated  first,  it  is  not 
because  the  morality  of  Precept  appears  at  a  later  stage.  Foi 
though  it  may  not  be  till  a  later  stage  that  precepts  truly  take 
effect,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  infancy  is  not  long 
past  when  they  first  make  their  appearance. 

At  an  early  period  in  a  nation's  life  men  begin  to  moralise. 
Their  epics  are  no  longer  divided  between  war, 
l°ve>  and  feasting  :  here  and  there,  as  in  the 


s    con- 


spicuouspart  pages  of  Homer,  deep  intuitions  interspersed 
show  that  reflexion  has  begun.  So  with  their 
histories  :  the  unreflective  detail  of  annals  is  broken  by  the 
moralising  vein.  And,  then,  there  arise  these  moralisers 
by  profession  —  lyric  poets  who  give  expression  to  feelings 
that  have  begun  to  struggle  for  utterance,  priests  to  reprove 
or  direct,  "wise  men"  whose  oracular  words  pass  from  lip 
to  lip.  And  so  the  growth  of  precepts  goes,  till  every  child 
born  into  the  world  comes  into  a  great  heritage  of  saws, 
proverbs,  reflexions,  commonplaces,  which  have  become  part 
and  parcel  of  the  national  mind  ;  and  which,  being  nothing 
if  not  practical,  come  ready  to  hand  to  moralist  and  educator. 
The  result  is  familiar.  Under  all  variety  of  circumstances,  in 
season,  and  often  out  of  season,  we  are  fed  on  a  diet  of  line 
upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept.  Children  find  precepts 


Precept  179 

on  the  walls  of  their  nurseries,  and  boys  and  girls  in  the 
headings  of  their  copy-books.  When  the  country  girl  leaves 
her  home,  it  is  with  a  precept  her  mother  bids  her  farewell ; 
and  it  is  with  a  precept  that  the  father  sends  out  his  boy 
to  make  his  way  in  the  world.  In  precepts  the  old  man  sums 
up  his  lifetime's  experience;  and  not  seldom  a  man's  last 
legacy  to  those  near  him  —  when  all  other  legacies  are  far 
enough  from  his  mind  —  is  the  legacy  of  a  precept. 


(l)     Unsystematised  Precept 

With  facts  like  these  in  mind,  it  would  be  absurd  to  deny 
that  precepts  help  to  shape  men's  lives.  They  do  :  Un 
so  powerfully,  even  in  the  lowest  of  three  phases  systematised 
which  they  may  assume  —  that  phase  in  which  J 
they  form  a  current  popular  morality  without  any  pretensions 
to  system,  or  even  arrangement.  Lines  of  the  poets,  epigrams 
of  the  moralists,  words  of  the  preachers,  above  all  that  mul- 
titude of  proverbs  whose  origin  no  one  can  trace,  and  whose 
authors  no  one  can  name  —  these  are  the  forms  in  which  the 
moralist  may  find  them  now,  just  as  the  Platonic  Socrates 
found  them  in  the  Agora  at  Athens,  when  he  went  about  dis- 
cussing Justice.  The  value  of  proverbs  is  itself 
proverbial.  Proverbs  have,  at  lowest,  that  cur- 
rency  which  counsels  that  are  commonplace  so 
readily  enjoy.  They  move,  for  the  most  part,  on  a  plane 
which  is  only  too  level  to  the  comprehension,  "the  wisdom 
of  many  "  if  "  the  wit  of  one."  And  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten 
that  "  the  wisdom  of  many,"  if  foolishness  in  matters  scientific, 
is  not  likely  to  be  so  where  the  interests  are  moral.  In  a 
sense  we  can  do  no  better  thing  than  turn  a  precept  into  a 
commonplace.  Wisely  was  it  one  of  Spinoza's  counsels  that, 
if  men  wish  to  come  to  the  hour  of  action  fully  prepared,  one 
way  in  which  they  can  do  so  is  by  rehearsing  to  themselves 


i  So  Precept 

in  meditative  hours  the  best  and  noblest  maxims  about  life  :  — 
"  Wherefore  the  best  we  can  compass  so  long  as  we  have  not 
a  perfect  knowledge  of  our  emotions,  is  to  lay  out  a  method 
and  settled  rules  of  life,  to  commit  these  to  memory,  and 
constantly  to  apply  them  to  such  particular  cases  as  do 
commonly  meet  us  in  life,  so  that  our  imagination  may  be 
penetrated  therewith,  and  we  may  ever  have  them  at  hand. 
We  laid  down,  for  example,  among  the  precepts  of  life,  that 
hatred  should  be  conquered  by  love  or  high-mindedness,  not 
repaid  in  kind.  Now  that  this  command  of  reason  may  be 
always  ready  for  us  at  need,  we  should  often  think  upon  and 
consider  the  wrongs  done  by  men,  and  in  what  manner  they 
are  warded  off  by  a  noble  mind.  For  thus  we  shall  knit  the 
image  of  a  wrong  done  us  to  the  imagination  of  this  precept, 
and  the  precept  will  always  be  at  hand  when  a  wrong  is  offered 
us." *  One  may  go  a  step  further,  and  maintain  that  it  is 
just  because  a  precept  is  commonplace  that  it  is  likely  to 
The  value  of  &°  nome'  For  ^ne  commonplaces  of  morality 
moral  com-  do  not  appeal  to  us  on  their  own  merits  alone. 
By  reason  of  their  currency  they  are  more  likely 
than  the  most  brilliant  epigram  to  come  enriched  by  associa- 
tion with  events  and  experiences  under  which  they  may  have 
on  memorable  occasions  been  spoken.  It  is  this  that  wings 
the  shaft,  and  many  a  time  sends  a  moral  platitude  home 
to  the  feathers.  Here  is  a  man  whose  conscience  records 
a  lie  :  to  cut  him  to  the  quick  nothing  unusual  is  necessary. 
Some  well-worn  aphorism  about  telling  the  truth  will  suffice, 
if  spoken  by  an  honest  man.  Here  is  another  taken  unawares 
by  sudden  temptation  —  what  keeps  him  right?  Nothing  epi- 
grammatic certainly :  only  a  few  trite  words  said,  it  may  be 
years  ago,  by  some  one  who  loved  and  trusted  him.  And 
there  is  one  memorable  instance,  beyond  which  nothing  can 
go  as  proof  how  words  in  themselves  commonplace  enough 

1  Cf.  Spinoza,  Ethics,  Part  V,  Proposition  X.,  Scholium ;  cf.  Pollock's 
Spinoza,  p.  285. 


Precept  181 

may  gain  from  their  setting.  "Lockhart,"  said  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  when  he  was  dying,  "  I  may  have  but  a  minute  to 
speak  to  you.  My  dear,  be  a  good  man  —  be  virtuous,  be 
religious  —  be  a  good  man.  Nothing  else  will  give  you  any 
comfort  when  you  come  to  lie  here." ] 

And  yet,  with  or  without  adjuncts,  even  a  hoard  of  precepts 
is  but  a  poor  outfit.    For  they  have  a  bewildering 
way  of  contradicting  each  other.     We  have  a  often*  con™* 
dozen  to  tell  us  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy  :   tradict  each 
a  dozen  more  to  say  that  the  children  of  this 
world  are  wiser  than  the  children  of  light.     Some  to  declare 
that  like  draws  to  like,  and  others  that  extremes  meet :    a 
host  to  persuade  us  that  to  hesitate  is  to  be  lost,  and  we 
are  almost  persuaded  —  till  we  remember  that  second  thoughts 
are  best.    As  many  to   decide  that  it  is  never  too   late  to 
mend ;  and  as  many  more  to  pronounce  that  as  the  tree  falls 
so  it  must  lie.     And  when  precepts  are  divorced  from  context 
—  as  all  proverbs  are  —  what  is  to  settle  priority,  when  ten  or 
twenty  thus  conflict? 

Add  to  this  that,  while  undoubtedly  proverbs  popularise 
morality,  they  have  an  unfortunate  tendency  at 
the  same  time  to  plebify  it.  They  gravitate  to- 
wards  motives  that  are  second-rate,  and  at  best 
respectably  prudential.  There  is  a  risk  that  every  one  incurs 
who  betakes  himself  to  the  man  of  precepts.  He  may  get 
advice,  or  he  may  find  that  he  has  made  himself  a  target  for 
platitudes.  Nor  does  anything  more  certainly  arrest  the  in- 
fluence of  "  good  advice  "  than  the  suspicion  that  it  has  been 
made  up  as  a  general  prescription.  It  is  but  human  that 
the  passionate  egoism  of  personal  trial  should  revolt  against 
this  exasperating  procurability  of  moral  commonplaces. 

Some  of  these   defects   however  can  be  remedied ;    and 
as  they  spring  in  part  at  least  from  want  of  systematisation, 
the  direction  in  which  the  remedy  lies  is  clear.    The  desultory 
1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  vol.  vn.  p.  393. 


1 82  Precept 

saws  and  sayings  of  proverbial  morality  may  be  systematised 
into  some  sort  of  moral  code. 


(2)    Moral  Codes 

The  great  superiority  of  a  code  is  that  it  implies  selection ; 
and,  though   mere  ceremonial  usages  may  at 
times  be  dignified  as  moral  laws,  selection  of 
the   best  and   most  authoritative.     In  obvious 
ways  this  implies  advance.     There  is  a  dignity,  deliberateness, 
and  breadth  in  the  precepts  of  a  code ;  and,  as  there  is  some 
attempt  at  unity,  they  cannot  be  so  contra- 
riorityUtoe~  dictory.    This  is  not  all.     Once  precepts  are 

unsystema-          committed  to  a  code,  they  acquire  an  educative 

tised  precepts.  ...  .  .  .,  „        .      , 

value  which  neither  severally  nor  collectively 
they  possessed  before.  For  codes  are  not  framed  lightly. 
They  come  from  the  hands  of  persons  much  in  earnest  with 
life,  to  whom  a  code  is  meaningless  if  it  be  not  enforced; 
who  therefore  set  themselves,  in  all  ways  possible,  to  back 
it  up  with  legal,  or  social,  or  it  may  be  supernatural  sanctions, 
and  who  make  it  their  life's  work  to  teach  and  to  preach  it, 
until  the  world  can  hardly  act  at  all  without  the  commands, 
and  the  terrors,  of  the  Law  ringing  in  their  ears.  And  so 
it  comes  to  pass  that  a  moral  code  may  enter,  like  iron  into 
the  blood,  into  the  lives  of  men  and  nations  —  like  that  primi- 
tive Hebrew  decalogue  which  is  the  accepted  code  of  the 

Western  World.  Moreover,  a  code  of  this  kind, 
comifs'mbois  an(^  w^  suc^  a  history,  ends  by  being  more 

than  a  code.  It  becomes  the  symbol  of  a  time- 
honoured  morality,  and  of  a  great  religion;  and  as  such 
it  evokes,  even  to  .superstition  and  worship  of  the  letter,  a 
reverence  and  obedience  far  beyond  the  reach  of  any  code 
without  such  associations,  even  though  this  were  put  together 
by  the  wisest  heads. 


Precept  183 

And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  there  are  features  in  the  best 
of  codes  which  are  profoundly  unsatisfactory.  Defects  of 

In  the  first  place,  a  commandment,  however  the  moral 
impressively  worded,  is  a  weak  instrument,  un-   c 
less  the  virtue  it  enjoins  has  already  made  good  its  place  in 
the  feelings,  the  habits,  and,  in  some  measure,      Nurture  of 
in  the  ideas  of  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed.  the  virtues  is 

mi     •     •  -i  i         needed  to  give 

Their  is  nothing  easier  than  to  use  the  words  :   meaning  to 
it  is  almost,  though  not  always,  as  easy  to  listen  PrecePts- 
to  them.     The  really  hard  task  is  to  secure  the  states  in  the 
soul,  and   the  consciousness   of  these  states,  in   absence  of 
which  the  words  will  signify  little. 

This  was  one  of  the  truths  that  Pestalozzi,  with  his  random 
insight,  saw  so  clearly.  He  did  not  give  his  pupils  many 
precepts.  He  tried,  so  he  tells  us,  to  create  the  feeling  of 
a  virtue  before  he  spoke  much  about  it.1  This  is  only  what, 
after  a  fashion,  we  often  recognise.  There  are  those  of  whom 
we  say :  "  The  man  does  not  know  what  honesty  means." 
And  when  we  say  so,  we  know  that  telling  will  not  mend 
matters,  because  the  thing  we  are  speaking  about  does  not 
really  exist  within  a  dishonest  man's  breast.  What  does  he 
know  of  honesty,  its  temptations,  its  struggle,  its  resolves  ? 
Yet  this  is  just  what  is  so  often  forgotten.  The  command- 
ment is  gravely  administered  on  the  naive  assumption  that 
nothing  more  is  needed ;  when  it  might  as  well  have  been, 
and  indeed,  so  far  as  actual  understanding  of  it  goes,  is  spoken 
in  an  unknown  tongue. 

Is  is  well  to   remember  this  in  making  up  our  minds  as 
to   the   practical  value   of  teaching  about  the 
duties  of  life,  especially  in  home  and   school.   o 
The  difficulty  that  has  to  be  faced  is  not  that  j^*1  know- 
of  bringing  conduct  into  line  with  precepts  that 
we  can  assume  to  be   fully  understood.     There   is   the  prior 

1  De  Guimps'  Pestalozzi  (Russell's  translation),  p.  159.  "  I  strove  to 
awaken  the  feeling  of  each  virtue  before  talking  about  it." 


1 84  Precept 

task  of  bringing  boy  or  girl,  not  to  say  man  or  woman,  really 
to  understand  what  we  are  speaking  about.  For  moral  know- 
ledge is  not  on  the  same  plane  as  scientific  knowledge.  When 
our  talk  is  of  triangles  or  plants  we  have  no  difficulty  in  con- 
juring up  in  the  listening  mind  the  things  referred  to.  We 
can,  if  we  please,  draw  the  one  upon  a  board,  or  produce 
the  other  from  a  herbarium.  But  we  may  expatiate  about 
virtues  or  duties  at  great  length  and  all  in  vain.  Because, 
in  the  absence  of  the  virtue  or  duty  in  our  listener,  our  words 
will  call  up  but  a  ghost  of  the  fact  we  wish  to  convey. 

Herein  lies  the  weakness  of  all  exhortation,  especially  in 
weakness  of  dealing  with  the  young.  "Be  honest,  be  in- 
mere  exhor-  dustrious,  be  generous,  brave,  forgiving ;  "  it  is 
good  advice  ;  and  the  manner  of  those  who  give 
it  may  often  encourage.  But  let  us  not  fall  into  the  illusion 
that  miracles  are  to  be  wrought  by  exhortations.  We  must 
take  a  longer,  more  arduous,  more  effective  way.  We  must 
first,  by  all  the  agencies  at  our  disposal,  by  nurture  of  instincts 
and  formation  of  habits,  by  "  natural  reactions,"  by  the  con- 
stant benevolent  superintendence  of  family,  school,  church, 
and  not  least  by  appeal  to  examples,  create  the  virtues.  So 
that  when  the  time  comes,  as  it  does  come,  for  recourse  to 
precept,  it  may  find  the  thing  of  which  the  precept  speaks 
already  deeply  rooted  in  the  feelings,  habits,  thoughts,  con- 
sciences of  those  to  whom  it  is  spoken. 

There  is  the  further  defect  that  codes  are  seldom  sys- 
tematised  enough.  They  select  precepts,  but 

Codes  fail  ,       ,.    ,          .  ;     .         , 

to  answer  the  they  afford  slight  clue  to  the  relative  impor- 
^sti°n:~"  tance  of  the  several  commandments  selected. 

^vnicn  is  the 

greatest  com-  They  do  not  so  much  as  seem  to  have  con- 
templated cases  where  it  is  not  only  impossible 
to  attach  equal  weight  to  each,  but  impossible  to  keep  one 
without  breaking  another.  Here,  for  example,  are  two  pre- 
cepts :  —  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill :  "  and  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal :  " 
the  one  enjoining  the  sacredness  of  life ;  the  other  of  property. 


Precept  185 

These  may  conflict.  Have  they  not  often  conflicted?  To 
protect  property  do  not  men  take  life  ?  To  preserve  life  have 
they  not,  in  dire  straits,  taken  property?  Yet  here  the  code 
fails  us.  We  need  some  principle  of  arrangement  ;  in  default 
of  which  we  are  driven  to  ask  that  most  natural  of  questions  : 
"  Which  is  the  greatest  commandment  ?  " 

It  is  an  even  greater  drawback  that  a  code  has  so  irre- 
sistible a  tendency  to  become  stereotyped  and      Rigidity  of 
inelastic.     All  the  instincts  of  moral   and   re-   the  moral 
ligious  conservatism  become  bound  up  in  it;  c 
and  the  direst  penalties  are  denounced,  it  may  be  executed, 
on  the  head  of  him  who  dares  to  take  from  or  to  add  to  it 
one  jot   or  one   tittle.     But   meanwhile   life   does   not  stand 
still.     It   flows   on   in   ever   increasing  volume,   however   we 
may  fossilise  our  formulas.     Fresh  experiences      The  enlarge. 
arise  ;  unexpected  situations  develope  ;  difficul-   ment  °f  ex- 
ties  disclose  themselves,  unforeseen  and  unfore- 


seeable  when  the  code  was  framed.     The  prob-   ineffectual 

1  generality  ox 

lems  of  life,  in  a  word,  become  so  complex  that  command- 
it  is  no  longer  enough  to  fall  to  dutifully  re-  ments- 
peating  the  tables  of  the  Law.  "Thou  shalt  not  kilT:  " 
good  !  but  there  are  many  things  in  life,  not  usually  called 
killing,  which  yet  seem  to  kill.  The  stinging  word,  the  pitiless 
act,  the  betrayed  trust,  the  broken  pledge  —  these  shorten 
men's  days.  And  what  of  the  prison,  the  scaffold,  or  the 
carnage  of  the  battle-field?  They  all  kill.  And  when  we 
say  "Do  not  kill"  which  do  we  mean,  all  —  or  some  —  or 
which?  Similarly,  with  "Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness." 
It  includes  clearly  enough  the  libellous  perjury  and  the 
downright  lie.  But  what  of  all  the  degrees  of  distortion  or 
suppression  of  the  truth,  down  to  the  significant  look,  the 
meaning  shrug,  the  smiling  insinuation  that  takes  away  our 
neighbour's  good  name?  So  throughout.  It  is  vain  to  hope 
that  the  most  pious  reiteration  of  the  generalities  of  a  code  can 
solve  these  difficulties  of  detail.  When  in  the  thick  of  actual 


1  86  Precept 

life,  time  short,  action  urgent,  issues  momentous,  men  find  them- 
selves face  to  face  with  concrete  problems,  the  rehearsal  of  moral 
generalities  however  sound,  however  venerable,  will  not  avail  much 
more  than  a  repetition  of  the  multiplication  table.  Impotent 
are  the  counsellors,  who  in  the  hour  of  our  need  can  contribute 
nothing  but  a  recital,  however  earnest,  of  moral  generalities. 

These  difficulties  bring  us  to  a  parting  of  the  ways.     Once 

Theinef-          t^ie  ineffectual  generality  of  precepts  has  made 

fectu»i  gen-         itself  felt,  two  courses  lie  open.     One  is  to  see  in 


'          *"       this  fact  a  final  proof  that  a  morality  of  precept 


cept 

met  in  two  js  unequal  to  the  demands  of  life,  and  to  turn 
from  it  to  a  morality  that  centres  its  hopes  in 
the  training  of  individual  judgment1.  The  second  is  to  refuse  to 
give  up  the  morality  of  precept  without  a  struggle,  and  to  set  reso- 
lutely to  work  to  make  it  adequate  to  those  facts  of  concrete  moral 
experience  by  which  the  morality  of  code  is  tested  and  found 
wanting.  These  alternatives  imply  a  fundamental  divergence  in 
educational  policy.  The  fear  that  dictates  the  first  is  the  produc- 
tion of  the  weak  and  self-distrustful  character  that  leans  for  ever, 
and  often  in  vain,  upon  guidance  from  without  :  the  remedy  is 
the  nurture  of  the  self-reliant  conscience.  In  the  second,  the  fear 
is  that  not  only  the  youth  but  the  grown  man  will  prove  unequal 
to  the  difficulties  of  life,  and  the  remedy,  the  prolongation  of 
authority  and  leading-strings  throughout  the  whole  of  life. 

It  is  the  adoption  of  the  second  course  that  leads  to  the  third 
phase  of  the  morality  of  precept,  that  supreme  effort  to  make 
moral  dogmas  adequate  to  life  which  gives  rise  to  Casuistry. 

CHAPTER   XIV 

PRECEPT  (continued} 

Casuistry 

INJUSTICE  is  done  to  Casuistry  because  it  is  so  often  taken 
Casuistry          to  imply  no  more  than  the  practice  of  making 
defined.  casuistical  objections  to  moral  rules,  or  possibly 

1  See  p.  202. 


Casuistry  187 

of  finding  ingenious  arguments  for  justifying  the  unjustifiable. 
But  these  are  only  incidents.  Casuistry  proper  is  a  thing 
much  more  ambitious,  because  much  more  constructive ; 
being  indeed  nothing  short  of  an  attempt  to  work  out  a  body 
of  authoritative  moral  precepts  in  detail,  so  as  to  show  that 
every  case  of  conduct,  actual  or  possible,  may  consistently  find 
its  place  under  one  or  other  of  such  precepts. 

It  is  like  a  jurist  working  out  a  code  of  Law.  Taking  his 
fundamental  laws  to  start  with,  the  jurist  goes  Casuistry 
on  to  anticipate  the  sort  of  cases  which  may  and  Law 
be  expected  to  present  themselves  to  be  dealt  c 
with,  and  by  providing  for  them  beforehand  in  the  pages  of 
his  code,  he  enables  perplexed  enquirers,  when  the  anticipated 
cases  arise  in  actual  life,  to  find  their  solutions  ready  to  hand. 
So  with  the  casuist.  He  is  the  jurist  of  morality.  As  the 
other  takes  his  laws  as  he  finds  them,  so  he  his  body  of  moral 
rules ;  and  this  done,  he  goes  on  to  do  his  best  to  specify, 
even  to  the  uttermost  detail,  the  cases  to  which  these  rules 
apply.  And  for  such  cases  he  is  never  at  a  loss.  Experience 
furnishes  many — and  it  is  one  merit  of  casuistry  that  it  has 
so  keen  an  eye  for  experience — but  it  is  not  even  the  widest 
actual  experience  that  can  satisfy  him.  He  has,  besides,  all 
the  resources  of  the  fertile  casuistical  imagination. 

Once  more  the  legal  parallel  may  help.     Sir  Henry  Maine 
has  told  us  of  a  primitive  Irish  Code  of  Laws, 
the  Brehon  Laws,  which  present  two  character-    L™°  ^ehon 
istics  hard  at  first  sight  to  reconcile.     The  one 
is  that  the  experience  of  the  men  who  drew  them  up  was 
limited.     Were  they  not  monks  ?     The  other  is  that  this  code 
is  celebrated  for  the  singularly  full  and  mature  development 
into  detail  of  its  leading  principles.      But  the  explanation  is 
easy.     What   though   these    monks  had  but  a  limited   expe- 
rience :    they  could  none  the  less  sit  in  their  cloisters   and 
invent  cases  far   beyond    their   personal    experience ;    invent 
them  and  solve  them  by  applying  to  these  creatures  of  their 
own  imagination  the  principles  of  their  code.      With  the  result 


1 88  Casuistry 

that  these  Brehon  laws  are  a  monument  of  early  Irish  law 
singularly  developed  into  all  the  ramifications  of  detail.1 

What  these  Brehon  lawyers  did  in  their  department,  the 
casuist  does  in  his.  Not  content  to  wait  on  slow-footed  ex- 
perience, he  takes  the  initiative  and  manufactures  cases  of 
conscience,  invents  difficulties,  states  fictitious  problems ;  and 
then  sets  himself,  with  the  help  of  his  accepted  code,  to  solve 
these  cases,  even  when,  for  aught  he  can  know,  they  never 
existed  nor  ever  will  exist  in  an  actual  world  of  men.  And 
so  it  comes,  as  cases  swell  to  chapters,  and  chapters  to 
volumes,  that,  by  this  union  of  actual  and  fictitious  experience, 
the  great  library  of  casuistry  is  built  up. 

As  thus  built  up,  it  has  two  characteristics:  —  (i)  It  is 
dogmatic.  It  starts  with  a  body  of  rules  which 

Two  charac-  J 

teristics  of  it  is  its  business  to  uphold.     There  is  no  ques- 

tion here  of  reforming  moral  rules,  or  of  recasting 
them  to  fit  the  facts  of  life.  It  is  quite  the  other  way ;  the 
facts  of  life  are  to  be  made,  by  devices  shortly  to  be  men- 
tioned, to  bend  to  them.  (2)  The  second  characteristic  is 
that  it  is  logical.  Its  precepts  once  accepted  (whatever  be 
their  source),  the  next  step  is  to  show  that  the  most  excep- 
tional case,  even  the  most  ingenious  vagaries  of  the  casuistical 
imagination,  may  be  dealt  with  and  solved  with  perfect 
consistency.  This  is  the  essence  of  casuistry ;  which  indeed 
is  nothing  other  than  the  most  elaborate  and  unfaltering  of 
all  attempts  to  make  life  adapt  itself  to  system. 

It  is   this  which   makes  it,  in   the   domain  of  morals,  a 

Comparison       close  counterpart  of  what  Scholasticism  is  in 

between  ca-         speculation.2      When  Scholasticism   was   at  its 

Sciioiasti"  height  the  scientific  and  speculative  spirit  of 

cism-  modern   Europe   had    already   begun    to    stir. 

1  Maine,  Early  History  of  Institutions,  p.  44.     "  The  Brehon  appears 
to  hav  •*  invented  at  pleasure  the  facts  which  he  used  as  the  framework  for 
his  legal  doctrine." 

2  Cf.  Caird's  Kant,  ist  edition,  p.  25. 


Casuistry  189 

New  discoveries,  new  thoughts,  were,  in  the  gradual  revolu- 
tion of  experience,  ertering  men's  minds,  and  the  task  of 
Scholasticism,  as  has  often  been  shewn,  was  to  do  its  best 
to  shew  that  no  new  expansion  of  experience  could  arise 
which  could  not  be  shewn  to  be  consistent  with  the  dogmas 
of  the  Church.  What  Scholasticism  thus  tried  to  do  for  the 
growing  intellectual  life  of  the  West,  Casuistry,  when  at  a 
later  time  it  made  its  supreme  effort  in  the  hands  of  the 
Jesuits,  tried  to  do  in  regard  to  conduct.  The  Protestant 
Reformation  had  taken  place.  Business,  politics,  private  life, 
were  all  disclosing  new  aspects,  and  there  was  a  felt  need  of 
a  morality  adequate  to  the  wants  of  the  day.  It  was  then 
the  Jesuits,  with  equal  dogmatic  confidence  and  intellectual 
subtlety,  set  themselves  to  shew  that,  no  matter  what  cases  of 
conscience  experience  or  suggestion  might  present,  there  could 
be  no  case  which  the  authoritative  morality  of  the  Church 
could  not  cover. 

Nor  need  we  go  so  far  afield  for  illustration.  There  is  a 
scholasticism  which  knows  nothing  of  the  Scholastics,  and 
a  casuistry  that  has  never  heard  of  the  Jesuits.  When  we 
meet  those  who  are  convinced  that  in  speculative  formula 
they  have  reached  finality,  such  persons  are  in  spirit  (whatever 
they  may  call  themselves)  Scholastics.  Because,  in  true  scho- 
lastic spirit,  their  first  question  about  anything  which  sci- 
ence or  speculation  may  have  to  reveal,  is  not  the  enquirer's 
question:  —  "Is  it  true?"  but  the  dogmatist's  question: 
—  "How  can  it  be  squared  with  my  preconceived  system?" 
This  is  the  scholastic,  and  the  casuist  of  all  times  and  places 
is  like  unto  him.  For  he  in  his  turn  is  no  less  firmly  con- 
vinced that  in  respect  of  ultimate  moral  creed  he  has 
nothing  to  learn  and  nothing  to  alter.  And  in  like  fashion 
his  first  question  about  action,  project,  problem  is  not :  — 
"Is  it  right?"  or  "Is  it  honest?"  It  is  the  dogmatist's 
question  :  —  "  How  can  this  be  covered  by  my  infallible  moral 
code  ?  "  Though  the  name  be  not  there,  the  essence  of  the 


1 9°  Casuistry 

thing  is  there  — the  dogmatic,  unbending  spirit  which  is  con- 
vinced that  there  is  no  difficulty  of  the  moral  life,  however 
unique,  which  cannot  be  shewn  to  fall  under  its  scheme  of 
life. 

It  follows   that,  be   their  shortcomings   what   they  may, 
casuists  are  entitled  to  the  credit  of  boldness. 

Boldness  ot 

the  casuistical  Their  task  is  not  easy.  It  needs  some  confi- 
dence to  maintain  that  actual  experience  will 
accommodate  itself  even  to  precepts  of  high  authority.  Here 
is  a  man  who  shoots  his  wife  to  save  her  from  falling  into  the 
hands  of  mutinous  Sepoys  —  can  we  call  it  murder  ?  Here 
is  another  who,  aghast  at  the  situation,  tells  a  crowded  audi- 
ence in  a  theatre  on  fire  that  there  is  no  danger  —  is  it  to 
be  branded  as  lying?  Here  is  another  who  knows  that  the 
one  chance  for  some  fugitive  slave  is  to  send  his  pursuers 
on  a  false  scent  —  will  honest  men  condemn  him  ?  It  is  so 
that  even  actual  experience  furnishes  cases  which  seem  to 
tie  men  up  either  to  violate  a  moral  law,  or  to  become  parties 
to  wrong  and  outrage.  If  fact  furnishes  cases  like  these,  what, 
we  may  well  ask,  is  not  within  the  power  of  casuistical  imagi- 
nation? The  very  pity  of  it  is  that  men  are  sometimes  so 
perilously  able,  by  comparatively  easy  combinations  of  the 
complex  elements  of  human  conduct,  wantonly  to  imagine 
cases  that  (to  use  Burke's  terse  phrase)  turn  our  very  duties 
into  doubts.  Where  is  the  moral  code,  be  its  precepts  drawn 
with  never  so  much  care,  which  can  stand  the  action  of  solv- 
ents like  these  ? 

And  yet  the  casuists  were  not  daunted.     For  they  had  an 
Casuistical        unfailing  resource.     They  conjured  by  the  help 
stress  upon          of  intention.     If  what  from  one  aspect  is  cut- 
throat  slaughter   is    from    another   honourable 
war ;  if  what  to  one  eye  is  assassination  is  to  another  patriotic 
insurrection ;  if  what  in  one  estimate  is  wanton  waste  of  costly 
product  of  labour  is  in  another  the  hyperbole  of  loving  sacri- 
fice, we  know  well  how  the  transformation  comes.  It  comes  by 


Casuistry  191 

reason  of  the  stress  we  lay  on  the  intention  of  the  agent. 
Do  we  harshly  condemn  Desdemona  when  she  told  the  fatal 
lie  ?  If  we  do  not,  the  reason  is  plain.  We  bear  with  the 
act  for  the  sake  of  the  intention. 

This  was  of  course  the  instrument  which  the  great  casuists 
wielded  with  such  power.  We  need  not  wonder  at  their 
success.  There  are  but  two  things  needful :  one,  a  body  of 
well  accredited  moral  precepts  j  the  other,  a  fair  measure  of 
that  imaginative  subtlety  that  can  manipulate  intentions.  Let 
but  a  man  have  these,  and  it  will  go  hard  with  him  if  he 
do  not  make  some  progress  towards  bringing  what  ordinary 
men  call  robbery  and  murder  under  one  or  other  of  the  pre- 
cepts that  are  not  to  be  questioned. 

Hence  the  well-known  doctrine  of  "  directing  the  intention" 
which  encountered  the  deep  and  delicate  sar- 
casm of  Pascal.  "  Know  then,"  says  the  monk 
in  the  Provincial  Letters?  "that  this  mar- 
vellous principle  is  our  grand  method  of  directing  the  in- 
tention. *  *  *  For  example,  when  I  was  shewing  you  how 
servants  might  execute  certain  troublesome  jobs  with  a  safe 
conscience,  did  you  not  remark  that  it  was  simply  by  di- 
verting their  intention  from  the  evil  to  which  they  were  acces- 
sory, to  the  profit  which  they  might  reap  from  the  transaction. 
*  *  *  But  I  will  now  shew  you  the  grand  method  in  all 
its  glory,  as  it  applies  to  the  subject  of  homicide  —  a  crime 
which  it  justifies  in  a  thousand  instances."  *  *  *  "  I  foresee 
already,"  said  I,  "  that  according  to  this  mode  everything  will 
be  permitted,  nothing  will  escape  it."  "  You  always  fly  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other,"  replied  the  monk.  "  For,  just 
to  shew  you  that  we  are  far  from  permitting  everything,  let 
me  tell  you  that  we  never  suffer  such  a  thing  as  the  formal 
intention  to  sin  with  the  sole  design  of  sinning ;  and  if  any 
person  whatever  should  persist  in  having  no  other  end  but 

x  Provincial  Letters^  vill.  p.  147.     (McCrie's  trans.) 


192  Casuistry 

evil  in  the  evil  that  he  does,  we  break  with  him  at  once; 
such  conduct  is  diabolical.  *  *  *  But  when  the  person  is 
not  of  such  a  wretched  disposition  as  this,  we  try  to  put  in 
practice  our  method  of  directing  the  intention,  which  simply 
consists  in  his  proposing  to  himself,  as  the  end  of  his  actions, 
some  allowable  object.  Not  that  we  do  not  endeavour,  in 
so  far  as  we  can,  to  dissuade  men  from  doing  things  un- 
lawful :  but  when  we  cannot  prevent  the  action,  we  at  least 
purify  the  motive,  and  thus  correct  the  viciousness  of  the 
means  by  the  goodness  of  the  end." 

This  of  course  is  satire  ;  but  it  indicates  where  the  effective- 
ness of  the  method  lay.     If  there  be  no  action 

This  recog-  . 

nition  of  the         so  unmitigatedly  evil  in  intention  but  that  some 


extenuating  plea  may  be  put  in,  how  much 
to  be  con-  easier,  when  a  project  seems  not  bad  but  only 

doubtfully  good,  to  bring  it  into  the  desired 
category  of  things  permitted,  by  pointing  out  that  it  may  be 
done  with  good,  or,  at  very  lowest,  with  respectable  inten- 
tions. Nor,  if  Casuistry  deserved  the  whip  of  Pascal,  was  it 
because  it  emphasised  the  intention  as  the  main  consideration 
in  morality.  It  is  in  the  best  of  company  when  it  does  so. 
All  the  greatest  ethical  thinkers,  not  excluding  the  utilitarians, 
agree  that  it  is  the  inward  aspect  of  conduct,  and  in  one 
sense  or  other  the  intention  of  the  agent,  that  makes  an  act 
moral  at  all.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  many  a  violation 
of  specific  moral  laws  can  still  be  kept  within  the  pale  of 
morality  by  the  adoption  of  some  well-directed  intention. 
"We  cannot  prevent  the  action,"  said  the  monk.  He  said 
rightly.  Hardly  can  such  actions  be  wholly  prevented.  If 
they  do  not  come  in  fact,  they  will  come  in  suggestion.  "  We 
at  least  purify  the  motive,"  he  added  :  and  in  so  saying  he 
did  not  necessarily  become  the  apologist  of  immorality.  He 
only  specified  a  resource  which  by  many  an  one,  not  casu- 
istically  minded  at  all,  has  been  used  in  all  honesty  to  justify 
unwilling  departure  from  the  letter  of  received  morality. 


Casuistry  193 

It  is  on  a  similar  ground  that  something  may  be  said  for 
the  other  resource  of  the  great  casuists  —  the 
more  dubious  doctrine  of  "Probabilism."1   This 


doctrine  after  all   only  formulates  on   a   great  ofProbabi- 
scale  what  many  men  do  many  a  time.     They 
take  advice  and  act  on  it  ;  thereby  making  probable  opinion 
the  guide  of  their  lives.     Who  will  blame  them?    The  baffling 
complexity,  the  inevitable  urgency  of  the  issues,  force  them 
to  it.      What  more  reasonable   than   to   seek  advice;    what 
more  unreasonable  than  to  suspend  action  till  advice  perfectly 
satisfies  our  reason?     Far  short  of  this  a  man  of  sense,  if 
the  hour  of  action  is  not  to  pass,  will  ask  no  more,  and,  on 
the  best  advice  he  can  get,  take  a  leap  in  the  dark. 

If  this   be  so,  the  casuists  are  not  to  be  blamed  if  they 
counselled   mankind   to   betake   themselves   to 

,    .  .  -     ,  -  In  certain 

advisers  ;   not  even  if  they  went  so   far  as  to  aspects,  this 


hold  that  it  was  something  if  a  man  could  justify 

\          *,    reasonable. 

his  conduct  by  citing  even  one  authority  of 
standing  which  he  had  been  at  pains  to  consult.  And  then, 
such  authorities  were  so  accessible,  in  the  persons  or  in  the 
pages  of  these  casuistical  doctors  themselves.  Why  should 
men  reject  this  resource?  They  do  not,  in  business  life, 
dispense  with  legal  advisers,  or  with  practical  experts.  It 
is  much  if  they  can  find  even  one  trusted  counsellor  on  whom 
to  lean.  Why  then  should  they  neglect  the  services  of  that 
moral  lawyer,  that  moral  expert,  the  casuistical  adviser  or  the 
casuistical  father-confessor?  And  yet,  in  one  aspect,  the 

iCf.  Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics,  p.  151.  "The  theory  (of  Pro- 
babilism)  proceeded  thus  :  —  A  layman  could  not  be  expected  to  examine 
minutely  into  a  point  on  which  the  learned  differed;  therefore  he  could  not 
fairly  be  blamed  for  following  any  opinion  that  rested  on  the  authority  of 
even  a  single  doctor;  therefore  his  confessor  must  be  authorised  to  hold  him 
guiltless,  if  any  such  '  probable  '  opinion  could  be  produced  in  its  favour, 
nay,  it  was  his  duty  to  suggest  such  an  opinion,  even  though  opposed  to 
his  own,  if  it  would  relieve  the  conscience  under  his  charge  from  a  de« 
pressing  burden." 


194  Casuistry 

doctrine   of  Probabilism  is   nothing  more.      Assume  the  ex- 
istence of  accredited  moral  advisers :  grant  the 

Tne  need  tor  ° 

advice  in  urgency  of  practical  issues ;   realise  how  often 

moral  action.  men  are  Driven  to  act  on  the  opinions  of 
other  persons  —  it  follows  that  any  man  who  has,  under  these 
circumstances,  taken  advice,  whether  from  casuistical  doctor 
or  from  private  friend,  has  followed  a  course  which  the  world 
would  characterise  as  ordinary  prudence.  As  long  as  there  is 
lack  of  the  rapid  grasp  of  fact,  the  swift  judgment,  the  moral 
nerve  needed  by  everyone  who  is  to  grapple  for  himself  with 
the  complexity  and  urgency  of  life's  issues,  so  long  will  ex- 
perience furnish  an  argument  for  the  doctrine  of  Probabilism. 
The  rule  of  life  which  Casuistry  suggests  is  therefore  simple, 
however  deep  moral  perplexities  may  be.  "  Go  to  your 
casuistical  volume  and  turn  up  chapter  and  verse  to  find 
your  case  anticipated  and  solved."  Or  should  it  happen  that 
we  cannot  well  find  our  way  in  these  authorities,  any  more 
than  we  can  in  the  pages  of  a  law  book,  what  simpler  than 
to  go  to  our  lawyer  in  morality  ?  He  too  will  have  his  cases 
at  his  finger  tips,  our  case  among  the  rest,  and  out  of  his 
resources  he  will  in  due  time  produce  the  opinion  which  is  to 
set  our  doubts  and  difficulties  at  rest. 

If  this  be  a  true  account   of  Casuistry,  it  would  be  idle 
to  deny  that  it  has  merits  :  it  is  at  any  rate  a 

Casuistry  is 

thus  a  protest  practical  protest  against  the  weakness  that  rests 
agamst  re-  content  with  moral  generalities.  Getting  advice 

course  to 

moral  gene-  or  giving  advice,  it  is  with  too  many  of  us  a  mat- 
ter of  "transgressions,"  "backslidings,"  "sins," 
"shortcomings,"  "temptations,"  all  in  the  same  strain  of  com- 
fortable vagueness.  Will  these  suffice?  Would  the  most 
ordinary  of  fathers,  giving  advice  to  his  son  as  he  sent  him 
out  into  the  world,  be  content  with  this  ?  Would  he  not  rather 
think  of  specific  sins,  concrete  temptations,  and  by  thus 
anticipating  the  actual  guise  in  which  evil  might  come,  be 
enabled  to  say  something  as  to  the  precise  way  in  which, 


Casuistry  *95 

when  it  did- come,  it  could  best  be  met?    Bare  prudence  tells 
us  that  a  man  is  wise  to  come  to  the  hour  of 
difficulty  with  his  battles  already  half-fought.    It  tice  to  the"8" 
is,  in  point  of  fact,  what  is  already  done  by  a  cuhieTof^" 
large  part  of  mankind,  who  are  all  confirmed   moral  pro- 
casuists  at  least  in  this  —  that  they  spend  many  b 
an  hour  in  anticipating  with  astonishing  minuteness  possible 
situations   in   which    they   may   be   placed,   and   in   inwardly 
resolving  what  they  shall  do  or  say,  should  these  possibilities 
come  to  pass.     It  is  thus,  that,  as  age  fights  its  battles  over 
again,  youth   and   manhood  may  fight  them  beforehand,  so 
that,  by  these  private  (often  very  private)  rehearsals  for  the 
drama  of  life,  they  may  make  sure,  when  the  time  comes, 
that  they  will  not  fail  to  play  their  parts.     Yet  this  is  just 
what  Casuistry  attempts  to  do  on  a  larger  scale.     It  anticipates 
concrete  cases  of  conscience  only  that  it   may  solve   them 
beforehand. 

It  is  precisely  here  however  that  issue  may  be  joined. 
Casuistry  has  the  merit  of  trying  to  be  practical,      Yet  in  the 
but  for  that  very  reason  it  lands  itself  in  what  is   effort  to  be 

i  ,  T-.         t         Ai  •  practical,  it 

impracticable.      For  be   the  casuist   never  so  becomes  un- 
subtle  in  the  suggestion  of  cases,  he  will  often  Practic*i. 
fail  signally  to  fore-figure  the  precise  difficulties  which  arise 
in  fact.    The  casuistical  treatise  is  unequal  to  the  subtlety 
of  moral  experience.     So  too  is  the  casuistical 
expert.    Those  who  consult  him,  if  their  case  casuistical 
be    one    of   genuine    perplexity,   will    be   apt  "£  whofeVe 
to  go  away  —  as  patients  with  some  intricate  concrete  case 
malady  often  leave  the  consulting-room  —  feel-  beforehim? 
ing  that  the  casuistical  adviser  had  not,  and   indeed   could 
not  have,  their  case  before  him  in  all  its  details,  and  that 
after  all  they  have  undergone  in  vain  the  humiliation  of  trying 
to  lay  bare  their  soul  before  another's  eye.     For  it  is  not 
egotism  to  think  our  troubles  unique.     The  egotism  lies  in 
exaggerating  their  magnitude.     In   their  character  they  are 


196  Casuistry 

unique.  Else  were  there  not  so  many  persons  who  are  never 
satisfied  with  advice  however  copious,  and  who  return  to  the 
charge  with  an  importunity  that  makes  them  the  torment  of 
their  advisers.  This  is  the  fatal  weakness  of  "  Probabilism." 
It  rests  on  the  assumption  that  we  can  find  an  adviser  able 
to  see  eye  to  eye  with  us  in  concrete  matters  which  in  their 
fulness  are  known  to  ourselves  alone. 

A  further  criticism  follows.     For  it  is  inevitable  that  in 

Casuistry  is,      l^s  va^n  eff°rt  precisely  to  forecast  experience, 

further,  apt  to      Casuistry  will  squander  energy  upon  issues  that 

suggest  diffi-  .  rr.i_-  -,. 

cuities  that  are  gratuitous.  This  goes  on  even  in  ordinary 
never  arise.  jjfe<  How  much  force  is  wasted,  especially  by 
nervous  persons,  upon  issues  that  never  arise,  upon  rehearsals 
for  plays  that  are  never  performed  !  If  suddenly  called  upon 
to  save  life,  how  should  we  act  ?  If  asked  for  this  favour  or 
that,  how  treat  the  request  ?  Idle  questions  !  The  hour  never 
comes  to  put  us  to  the  proof.  Similarly  with  the  casuist :  in 
proportion  as  he  is  zealous  to  develope  his  system  into  detail, 
for  one  event  that  comes  to  pass  he  may  forecast  fifty  that 
never  exist  out  of  his  imagination.  This  is  bad  economy.  It 
wastes  resources.  Men  cannot  afford  in  life  to  burn  too  much 
powder  upon  sham  fights. 

It  is  a  more  serious  consideration  still  that  the  casuist  may 

And  ma  easily  produce  a  result  the  opposite  of  that  which 

turn  duties  he  proposes.    Sincerely  bent  upon  turning  men's 

doubts  into  duties,  he  may  end  by  turning  their 

duties  into  doubts.1     And  in  his  eagerness  to  uphold  his  moral 

dogmas,  he  may  find  that  he  has  succeeded  only  in  habituating 

the  minds  of  his  disciples  to  the  idea  of  their  infringement. 

This  was  a  point  acutely  realised  by  Burke  in  regard  to 
Casuistry  in  politics.  Every  reader  knows  how  Burke  dreaded 

1  Cf.  Burke,  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs,  Works  (Bohn's 
Ed.),  vol.  in.  p.  81.  "  But  the  very  habit  of  stating  these  extreme  cases  is 
not  very  laudable  or  safe :  because,  in  general,  it  is  not  right  to  turn  out 
duties  into  doubts." 


Casuistry  197 

and  denounced  the  politicians,  or  political  theorists,  who  were 
for  ever  debating  the  right  of  insurrection  or  Illustration 
the  legitimacy  of  revolution.  It  was  not  that  he  from  Casuistry 
held  all  talk  of  revolution,  or  even  revolution  in  politics' 
itself,  to  be  wrong.  He  had  read  history  too  well.  He  knew 
that  there  are  dire  occasions  on  which  Revolution,  "  the  last 
bitter  potion  of  distempered  states  "  needs  must  come.  But  none 
the  less  it  was  in  his  eyes  nothing  short  of  a  crime  that  the 
discussion  that  knows  no  reticence  should  lightly  stir  questions 
which  threw  doubts  upon  the  authority  of  the  laws  upon  which 
the  commonwealth  stands.  The  same  holds  in  the  casuistry 
of  morals.  There  too  it  needs  must  be  that  the  dire  emer- 
gencies come.  But  for  that  very  reason  a  man  of  sense  will  be 
chary  of  making  them  every-day  topics  with  all  comers.  It  is 
the  bane  of  all  casuistical  discussion  that  it  gives  to  exceptional 
cases  a  currency  which,  as  exceptional,  they  ought  never  to 
possess.  When  such  issues  arise  a  man  does  well  to  face 
them :  he  no  longer  does  well  if  he  cries  them  aloud  upon 
the  housetops.  For  then  he  need  not  be  surprised  if  (to  para- 
phrase the  words  of  Burke)  he  has  turned  the  extreme  medicine 
of  life  into  its  daily  bread,  and  thereby  made  the  moral  con- 
stitution of  his  fellow  men  dangerously  valetudinary.1 

This   danger   is   never   so   great  as   in   the   education  of 
youth  and  innocence.     It   is   so   easy,  in   the 
interests    of    morality,   to    put   questions    that 
become  the  first  revelation  of  the  possibilities  of  the  education 

, .  __         ,  of  the  young. 

immorality.  For  the  casuist  is  a  moral  patholo- 
gist. He  brings  with  him  a  large  knowledge  of  the  thousand 
shapes  in  which  perplexities  and  temptations  may  come ;  and 
the  risk  is  that,  by  the  suggestion  of  the  pitfalls  that  beset  the 
feet  of  those  he  wishes  to  help,  he  may  instil,  first,  suspicion 
of  themselves,  and  then  suspicion  of  those  they  meet,  where 
there  was  previously  the  innocent  and  wholesome  illusion  that 
there  was  nothing  to  suspect.  For  it  is  not  in  this  way,  by 
1  Cf.  Burke,  Reflections  on  tht  French  Revolution,  Works,  vol.  n.  p.  335. 


1 98  Casuistry 

warnings  however  well  meant  which  suggest  that  they  are 
capable  of  evil,  that  we  can  best  help  the  young.     It  is  by 

persuading  them  that  they  are  capable  of  good 
warning  that  we  can  hope  to  make  them  good  in  reality.1 

without^"         ^-en  arSue  sometimes  that  a  knowledge  of  evil 
rupting  the          is  sure  to  come  in  any  case.     Does  it  not  come 

through  books,  through  newspapers,  through  ex- 
periences which  unhappily  cannot  be  avoided?  And  they 
insist,  not  without  reason,  that  it  is  better  that  such  knowledge 
should  come  from  a  responsible  father  or  teacher  who  brings 
the  antidote  along  with  it,  than  be  left  to  the  disclosures  of 
irresponsibility  and  accident.  Be  it  granted  that  something  of 
this  is  necessary.  Inoculation  with  the  virus  of  disease  is 
sometimes,  as  we  know,  an  antidote  to  disease  in  a  deadlier 
form.  Yet  the  central  fact  remains  untouched  :  the  best  moral 
antidote  lies  not  in  warnings  however  particular,  but  in  that 
positive  nurture  of  character  which  is  the  real  source  of 
strength  in  the  hour  of  temptation. 

Beyond  this  there  is  the  effect  of  Casuistry  on  the  casuist 

himself.     The  man  who  keeps  the  consciences 

Effects  of 

Casuistry  upon  of  his  neighbours  will  need  all  his  strength  to 
preserve  his  own.  He  will  soon  cease  to  be 
easily  shocked.  For  he  will  be  so  familiar  with  all  degrees  of 
moral  lapse,  and  so  adept  in  the  art  of  justifying  case  upon 
case  which  involves  a  wider  and  ever  wider  deflection  from 
ordinary  morality,  that  even  in  his  own  despite,  he  may  end  by 
holding  a  brief  in  the  name  of  morality  for  what  is  usually 
regarded  as  lying,  theft,  or  murder,  and  thereby  lay  himself 
open  to  the  indignant  protests  of  the  popular  conscience. 

It  is  not  however  by  the  popular  conscience  that  Casuistry 
is  finally  to  be  judged.  The  popular  mind  is  too  rough  in 
its  categories,  too  vague  in  its  definitions,  too  robust  in  its 
judgments,  to  do  justice  to  the  perplexities  of  the  genuinely 
tender  conscience.  And  the  same  holds  true  of  that  other 

1  Cf.  p.  88. 


Casuistry  199 

anti-casuistical  appeal  to  criminal  justice.     It  has  happened 

before  now  that,  by  the  casuistical  manipulation 

of  intentions,  men  have  found  themselves  within      Yet  Casuistry 

the  clutches  of  the  law.     And  where  there  has 

been  an  easy  or  a  sinister  self-sophistication,  the 

onlooker  may  be  pardoned  if  he  feels  a  glow  of  conscience  or 

satisfaction  at  the  shattering  of  a  fool's  or  a  j°sct£™inal 

knave's  illusion.     It  is  in  fact  just  one  of  the 

results  that  Pascal  knew  how  to  suggest :  — 

"  You  have  certainly,"  continued  I,  "  contrived  to  place  your 
disciples  in  perfect  safety  so  far  as  God  and  the  conscience 
are  concerned ;  for  they  are  quite  safe  in  this  quarter,  according 
to  you,  by  following  in  the  wake  of  a  grave  doctor.  You  have 
also  secured  them  on  the  part  of  the  confessors,  by  obliging 
priests,  on  the  pain  of  mortal  sin,  to  absolve  all  who  follow  a 
probable  opinion.  But  you  have  neglected  to  secure  them  on 
the  part  of  the  judges ;  so  that,  in  following  your  probabilities, 
they  are  in  danger  of  coming  into  contact  with  the  whip  and 
the  gallows.  This  is  a  sad  oversight." 

"  You  are  right,"  said  the  monk ;  "  I  am  glad  you  mentioned 
it.  But  the  reason  is,  we  have  no  such  power  over  magistrates 
as  over  the  confessors,  who  are  obliged  to  refer  to  us  in  cases 
of  conscience,  in  which  we  are  the  sovereign  judges." 

"  So  I  understand,"  returned  I ;  "  but  if,  on  the  one  hand, 
you  are  the  judges  of  the  confessors,  are  you  not,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  confessors  of  the  judges  ?  Your  power  is  very  exten- 
sive. Oblige  them,  on  pain  of  being  debarred  from  the  sacra- 
ments, to  acquit  all  criminals  who  act  on  a  probable  opinion ; 
otherwise  it  may  happen,  to  the  great  contempt  and  scandal  of 
probability,  that  those  whom  you  render  innocent  in  theory 
may  be  whipped  or  hanged  in  practice." * 

Yet,  again,  the  appeal  is  not  conclusive.     Law  is  a  rough 
engine :   and  laws  are,  moreover,  enacted  not  to  emphasise 
moral  distinctions  but  to  secure  political  order  or  progress. 
1  Provincial  Letters,  Letter  vn.,  McCrie's  trans.,  p.  145. 


2OO  Casuistry 

And  as,  in  pursuit  of  its  own  ends,  Law  is  mainly  concerned 
with  overt  acts,  and  only  indirectly  with  motives, 
ia'Je  ey™o° als     it  will  sometimes  happen  that  a  convict  may  find 
the  Law  may       himself  among   criminals   in   comparison    with 
offenders01*1        whose  moral  infamy  he  is  innocence  itself.     It 
therefore  does  not  follow  that  because   Casu- 
istry may  have  brought  men  to  the  gallows,  it  stands  con- 
demned. 

The  truth  is  that  such  appeals  do  not  go  to  the  root  of  the 
matter.    The  real  weakness  of  Casuistry  is  not 

The  central  .  ...  •         i 

defect  of  disclosed  in  those  casuistical  apologies  that  out- 

due"oSitsiS  raSe  the  poplar  conscience.  The  vulnerable 
dogmatic  point  lies,  not  in  the  suggestion  that  a  lie  must 

be  told  or  a  life  taken,  but  in  the  dogmatic  spirit 
in  which  these  repulsive  possibilities  are  treated.  For  Casuistry 
be  it  remembered  is  the  peculiar  product,  neither  of  an  age  of 
easy  faith  nor  of  an  age  of  easy  scepticism.  It  comes  when 
moral  difficulties  have  made  themselves  felt ;  but  when,  as  yet, 
there  is  no  thought  of  setting  aside  the  traditions  of  the  elders. 
The  result  is  the  struggle  to  fit  new  cases  into  old  forms  at  all 
costs,  which  produced  the  great  casuistical  systems  —  a  struggle 

the  whole  aim  of  which  was  to  show  that  the 

Casuistical 

cases  needs          refractory  exceptional  cases  were  consistent  with 
that   dogmatic   version  of  morality  which   the 
orthodox  casuist  still  insisted  on  receiving  at  the  hands  of 
authority.     But  it  is  not  in  this  fashion  that  a,  real  case  of 
conscience  is  to  be  solved.     When  one  of  these  dire  emer- 
gencies has  come  in  which,  with  the  command  of  the  law 
"Thou  shalt  not  lie,"  "Thou  shalt  not  kill"  still  ringing  in  his 
ears,  a  man  feels  bound  to  lie  or  to  kill,  his  one  and  only 
justification  must  be  sought  in  the   conviction 

and  must  be  .     L  ,  ..  ,  ,      ,  ,.  ., 

solved  by  that  he  is  setting  a  lesser  moral  obligation  aside 

appeal  to  jn  obedience  to  a  higher.     It  is  not  —  as  Tacobi 

moral  law.  J 

has  it  in  an  often  quoted  passage  —  that  "  the  law 
is  made  for  the  sake  of  man  and  not  man  for  the  sake  of  the 


Casuistry  201 

law."  *     If  man  is  not  to  be  the  creature  of  caprice,  he  must  be 
made  for  law.     The  choice  is  between  two  kinds  of  law  and 
two  kinds  of  obedience  —  obedience  to  the  law 
of  which  the  last  word  is  "Thus  it  is  written,"   weakness  lies 


and  obedience  to  that  other  law  which  is  more 
enduring  and  more  imperative  than  anything  precepts  based 
that  can  ever  find  adequate  embodiment  in  any  on  Autl 
code  of  precepts.  The  final  mistake  of  the  casuist  is,  that  of 
these  alternatives  he  chooses  the  first.  His  hands  are  tied  by 
his  own  code,  and  when  he  should  have  boldly  asked  the 
strong  question:  —  "Is  this  moral?"  he  asks  that  how  much 
weaker  question:  —  "Is  this  consistent  with  formula?"  And 
if  to  the  nerve  to  put  his  question,  for  which  he  deserves  all 
credit,  he  add  the  dogmatic  determination  to  find  an  answer  in 
the  affirmative,  he  must  expect  that,  in  the  effort  of  a  subtle 
mind  to  force  a  false  and  narrow  consistency,  he  will  torture 
actions  till  he  provokes  the  scorn  of  the  honest  man,  and  the 
laugh  of  the  satirist. 

For  the  casuist's  error  lies  not  in  "  directing  the  intention." 
There  is  no  higher  aim  for  the  moralist  than  to  This  weakness 
"  direct  the  intention."  The  great  matter  is,  of  Casuistry 

,  .  ,        n        -f      .        .  .          -  .,  .  discloses  the 

whither?      It  is  there  that  failure  comes,  be-   need  for  the 


cause  it  is  there  that  instead  of  appealing  to  the  *r*i.ni.^  °f  the 

individual 

one  impenal  court  of  Moral  Law,  the  casuist  moral  judg- 
knows    no    higher    morality   than    that    which   ment' 
moves  within  the  provincial  jurisdiction  of  formulated  precepts. 
Casuistry  will  always   render  the   world   great   services;    but 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  them  will  be  that,  by  attempting  the 
impossible,  it   may  prove   the   inadequacy  of  a   morality  of 
precept  even  when  consecrated  by  authority,  and  thereby  send 
mankind  in  search  of  something  deeper. 

1  Cf.  an  interesting  note  in  Caird's  Kant3  vol.  IL  216, 


PART   III 

SOUND  JUDGMENT 

i 

CHAPTER  I 

SOUND  MORAL  JUDGMENT 

THE  shortcomings  of  the  morality  of  Precept  may,  however, 
be  met  otherwise  than  by  following  the  casuist.  Instead  of 
developing  general  precepts  into  detail,  there  is  the  alternative 
of  training  the  individual  to  decide  concrete  issues  for  himself, 
and  in  this  case  effort  will  be  concentrated  upon  the  education 
of  what  may  most  fitly,  because  most  comprehensively,  be  called 
sound  individual  judgment. 

Educational    systems,   however,   differ   widely  as    to    the 

encouragement  to  be  given  to  this  supremely 
systems  differ  important  faculty.  Some,  fearful  of  premature 
and°v2uePofCC  freedom>  strive  to  prolong  even  into  adult 
individual  years  the  guidance  of  authority  (as  we  have 

seen  in  Casuistry).     Others  dread  the  creation 

of  the   limp   character   that   to   the   last  leans  helplessly  on 

Yetthevari       &oo<^  ^vice.     Yet,  sooner  or  later,  even  under 

ous  resources        any  system,  the   need  for   a   sound    judgment 

itself  fdt' 


to  the  ultimate     people  must  needs  be  left  free  to  exercise  some 

choice  in  their  own  small  realm  of  School  or 

Pastime.     And,  as  time  goes  on,  weightier  decisions  will  come 

202 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  203 

with  the  inevitable  temptations  and  perplexities  that  are  laid 
often  enough  on  shoulders  still  young.  In  the  long  run  nothing 
else  will  suffice.  The  unsuspecting  confidence  of  instinct 
goes,  not  to  return  again.  The  hardly  less  unsuspecting  con- 
fidence of  habit  gets  many  a  shake  in  the  face  of  changing 
situations.  The  examples  an  expanding  experience  offers  dis- 
close their  limitations,  and  begin  to  bewilder  by  their  very 
multitude.  Precepts,  however  valued,  can  no  longer  disguise 
their  mutual  contradictions  and  their  ineffectual  generality. 
And  if  Casuistry  steps  in  to  develope  them  into  detail,  this  is 
but  a  postponement.  The  day  comes  when  the  individual 
is  brought  face  to  face  with  his  own  peculiar  difficulties,  so 
commonplace  yet  so  unique.  He  must  learn  to  judge  his 
own  judgments,  or  confess  himself  pitifully  unequal  to  the 
demands  of  life. 

It  is  good  that  it  should  be  so.     For  of  all  human  facul- 
ties there   is   none   which    more   enriches   our 
lives  than  a  sound  moral  judgment.      Genius  va®"|? r0ef™e 
is   rarer   and   more   wonderful.     But   this   sur-   sound  judg- 
passes  even  genius  in   the  fact  that  it  is  not 
only  in  itself   a  virtue   but   the    fruitful   mother  of  virtues,, 
It  is  as  Aristotle  said,    "  Given   a   sound  judgment   and   all 
the  virtues  will  follow  in  its  train."  1     Place  its  possessor  in 
business ;    and,  as  the  years  go   round,  he  will  by  many  a 
shrewd  decision  develope  the  merchant's  virtues.     Cast  his  lot 
among  friends,  and  he  will  prove  himself  considerate,  faithful, 
generous.     Ask  him  to  enter  public  life,  and 
even  on  that  slippery  foothold  he  will  choose   a  Virtue°but  y 
the  path  that  leads  to  the  civic  virtues.     So  all  the  Parent  of 

•     i         /•    i  virtues. 

round  the  wide  circle  of  human  interests  and 

duties.     For  a  sound  judgment  has  a  twofold  efficacy.     By 

choosing   right  acts  it  further  carries  on,  and  confirms,  the 

1  Ethics,  Bk.  vi.  c.  xiii.  6.      "  The  presence  of  the  single  virtue  of  pru- 
dence implies  the  presence  of  all  the  moral  virtues."     (Peters'  translation.) 


2O4  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

habits  of  the  days  of  tutelage ;  and,  by  its  emancipated  out- 
look and  open-eyed  deliberate  choice,  it  lifts  its  possessor 
clear  of  the  automatism  into  which  Habit,  even  at  its  best, 
is  prone  to  fall.  Hence  it  brings  an  independence  which 
nothing  else  can  give.  For,  once  a  man  has  it,  he  can  never 
be  nonplussed  and  baffled.  No  matter  how  his  sphere  of 
action  may  vary  —  and  it  may  vary  from  cottage  to  palace  — 
the  manner  of  his  decisions  will  never  vary.  In  all  places 
and  at  all  times,  by  dint  of  what  some  will  call  moral  in- 
sight ;  some,  moral  tact ;  or  some  simply,  good  sense,  he  will 
know  how  to  pitch  upon  the  very  action  which,  under  given 
circumstances,  is  the  action  which  ought  to  be  chosen.  And 
should  he  err,  as  he  well  may,  he  will  be  the  first  to  recognise 
his  error,  and  amend  it. 

Mutatis  Mutandis  it  is  what  we  often  find  in  the  arts, 

whether  they  be  the  fine  arts  or  those  humbler 
of™earts!°ffy      Poetical  arts  to  which  the  Greek  philosophers 

were  for  ever  likening  the  moral  life.  With  the 
sagacity  of  the  craftsman  in  the  greater  art  of  living,  and 
without  the  pedant's  entanglement  in  precedents  and  cut  and 
dried  rules,  the  man  of  sound  judgment,  sometimes  after  de- 
liberation anxious  and  prolonged,  sometimes  by  a  swift  insight 
that  appears  to  take  in  end  and  means  at  a  glance,  will  from 
competing  alternatives  pick  out  just  that  one  which  the  occa- 
sion demands.  "  Prudence,"  says  Burke  in  the  true  spirit  of 
Aristotle,  "  is  not  only  the  first  in  rank  of  the  virtues,  political 
and  moral,  but  she  is  the  director,  the  regulator,  the  standard 
of  them  all."  1  And,  then,  this  possession  is  enduring.  Ac- 
A  sound  complishments  may  rust  for  lack  of  encourage- 

practicai  judg-      ment  or  lack  of  opportunity  ;    and  gifts,  even 

ment  is  an  in-  J  .  . 

alienable  pos-       the  greatest,  may  come  to  nothing  by  long-lived 

pressure  of  urgent  duties  or  sordid  cares.     But 

practical  wisdom  brings  the  self-sufficing  consolation  that  for 

1  Burke,  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs,  Works,  in.  p.  16. 
(Bohn's  Ed.) 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  205 

it  the  sphere  can  hardly,  if  ever,  be  denied.  For  its  achieve- 
ments men  find  opportunities  every  day  they  live;  and  the 
fate  which  may  take  money,  position,  friends,  cannot  rob 
them  here.  Once  truly  theirs,  they  yield  it  up  only  with  life 
itself,  and  even  in  the  last  scene  of  all  they  have  often  enough 
borne  witness  to  its  vitality  by  meeting  their  end  with  becoming 
fortitude. 

It  is  just  here,  however,  that  we  find  ourselves  confronted 
by  an  educational  difficulty  of  the  first  magni-      But  is  it  not 
tude.     For  if  a  sound  judgment  be  thus  invalu-  beyond  the 
able,  it  seems  to  be  likewise  incommunicable,   educator>s  art? 
and  this  to  an  exasperating   degree.     Social   tact   cannot   be 
communicated  to  the  victim  of  awkward  manners.     Artistic 
skill  is  not  to  be  taught  to  the  spoiler  of  canvases,  or  to  the 
bungler  in  arts  and  crafts.     And,  at  first  sight  at  all  events,  it 
appears  not  otherwise  with  sanity  of  judgment. 

This  is  what  many  a  man  of  affairs  has  felt  to  his  cost, 
when  forced  to  entrust  some  delicate  negotia- 
tion to   a   subordinate   whose   good   sense   he  Communica-n~ 
could  not  trust.     It  is  what  the  self- distrustful,  bility  of  sound 

i  judgment. 

conscious  of  past  wrong-headed  estimates,  have 
known  only  too  well,  when,  face  to  face  with  a  critical  de- 
cision, they  would  give  all  the  world  for  that  sagacity  to 
which  not  even  their  dearest  friends  can  help  them.  "  If 
you  want  learning,"  once  said  a  Scottish  divine,  "you  may 
get  it  from  books.  If  you  lack  grace,  you  may  pray  for  it. 
But  if  you  lack  judgment,  God  help  you  !  "  So  incom- 
municable is  this  supreme  virtue.  And  indeed  it  is  just  for 
this  reason  that  there  is  a  widely  diffused  conviction  that 
what  is  variously  described  as  "mother-wit"  and  "common 
sense,"  and  "  sagacity,"  and  "  shrewdness,"  and  "  practical 
wisdom,"  is  after  all  a  gift  of  Heaven,  and  as  such  quite 
beyond  the  educator's  art. 

Happily,  however,  it  is  not  so  incommunicable  as  appears, 
A  sound  judgment  is  in  point  of  fact  a  highly  complex  product 


206  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

It  is  resolvable  into  elements.     And,  though  in   the   mature 

Moral  educa-     type  of  man  these  elements  have  come  to  be  so 

tion  can,  how-      organically  knit  that  in  exercise  they  work  like 

ever,  do  much  * 

to  secure  the  a  single  faculty,  it  is  not  beyond  analysis  to 
somJd'judg1-  detect  what  they  are,  and  to  scrutinise  the  manner 
ment.  of  their  union.  It  is  in  this  direction  that  hope 

lies.  Grant  that  the  greatest  master  of  moral  training  cannot 
directly  impart  this  soundness  of  judgment :  it  still  remains 
to  ask  what  he  can  do  in  securing  the  presence,  and  the 
union,  of  the  elements  out  of  which  it  is  fashioned. 

These  elements  appear  to  be  three  in  number.  If  the 
moral  judgment  is  to  be  sound  it  must  pre- 
suppose  character,  faculty  to  deliberate,  and 
enlightenment} 

It  is  of  the  very  essence   of  our   moral,  as  distinguished 

i.  Depend-         from  our  scientific,  judgments  that  they  are  pro- 

ence  of  sound-      foundly  dependent  upon  the  character   of  the 

ness  of  moral  ,        -  .  T      .      .     ,        ,  - 

judgment  upon  person  who  frames  them.  It  is  indeed  one  of 
the  character.  Aristotle's  greatest  merits  to  have  seen  that 
character  tells  vitally  upon  the  decisions  of  our  daily  lives 
as  it  does  not  and  cannot  tell  upon  the  judgments  we  frame 
about  scientific  matters  of  fact.  The  cleverest  of  men,  he 
tells  us,  will  be  but  a  clever  scoundrel  if  cleverness  be  not 
allied  with  virtuous  habits ;  and  vice,  while  it  leaves  unaltered 
our  perceptions  about  lines  or  triangles,  is  swift  to  corrupt 
our  decisions  upon  matters  of  life  and  conduct.2  A  high 
authority  tells  us  that  "  things  hidden  from  the  wise  and  pru- 
dent are  revealed  to  babes."  Absurd  as  applied  to  science, 
and  worse  than  absurd  if  twisted  into  an  apology  for  igno- 
rance, it  has  its  truth  in  morality. 

1 1  may  perhaps  refer  to  my  Ethics  of  Citizenship,  where  this  subject 
has  been  treated  in  its  relation  to  political  consistency,  c.  vii.  3rd  ed. 
(MacLehose  &  Sons.) 

2  Ethics,  Bk.  vi.  v.  6,  and  vi.  xii.  10.  "  Vice  perverts  us  and  causes  us 
to  err  about  the  principles  of  action.** 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  207 

The  reason  is  that,  in  these  decisions  of  our  daily  lives  — 
acceptance  of  a  situation,  spending  of  money,      We  must  not 
advice  given  to  a  friend,  and  ,so  on  —  it  is  never  ™uetr^iknhow' 
enough  for  us  simply  to  know.     We  must  also  the  conditions 
weigh.     To  see  with  clear  eyes  the  conditions  of  our  acti°n*. 
involved  in  plan  or  suggestion  is  much :  to  lay  a  just  emphasis 
upon  each  condition  is  more.     Thus,  if  it  be  a  question  of 
giving,  a  man  must  not  think  too  much  of  money  and  too 
little   of  mercy;   too  much   of  his   own   thrift,  too   little  of 
others'  needs ;  too  much  of  the  manner  of  his  gift  and  too 
little  of  its   urgency   or  end.     For   our   difficulties   in   such 
matters  would   be   light   in   comparison   with  what   they   are, 
did  they  end  with  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  circumstances 
involved.     The  harder,  yet  no  less  imperative,  task  is  to  weigh 
this  condition  as  against  that,  so  that,  in  face  of  possible  ex- 
aggerations, possible  under-estimates,  which  in  truth   are   as 
numerous  as  are  the  circumstances  involved,  we  may  preserve 
that  delicate  equipoise  and  balance  in  our  valuations  which  is 
the  central  condition  of  all  wise  decision.1 

Hence  that  familiar  experience  that  it  is  so  hard  to  bring 
our  friends  to  see   eye   to   eye   with   us,   even     This  helps  to 
upon  some   comparatively  simple   issue,  if  the  explain  the  di- 

,        T       .  .     -  i         i  i      vergencies  of 

issue  be  moral.  It  is  a  much  harder  task  opinion  upon 
than  the  teaching  of  physics  or  mathematics.  moral  issues- 
For,  while  of  course  we  may  expect  that  our  friends  will,  up 
to  a  certain  limit,  understand  our  words,  it  would  be  rash 
to  hope,  with  anything  like  the  same  confidence,  that  their 
weights  will  be  our  weights,  their  perspective  our  perspective, 
their  emphasis  our  emphasis.  To  the  type  of  character,  for 
example,  in  which  there  is  a  congenital  proclivity  to  pleasure, 
or  shrinking  from  pain,  not  all  the  words  of  all  the  sages  will 
prevent  pleasure  or  pain  from  tending  to  bulk  too  large  in 
every  project  and  every  decision  of  his  life.  Only  by  effort 
and  self-discipline  will  he  keep  these  things  in  their  due 

1CL  p.  76  and  p.  164. 


208  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

place.  For  the  worst  of  such  predispositions  is  not  said 
when  we  acknowledge  that  they  lead  astray  in  action.  The 
taint  goes  deeper.  Horror  of  pain  or  greed  for  pleasure  will 
distort  the  just  proportions  of  things,  and  render  their  victim 
incapable  of  that  fair  and  unprejudiced  outlook  upon  which 
sound  judgment,  the  parent  of  action,  ought  ever  to  rest.  As 
Burns  has  it : 

"  If  self  the  wavering  balance  shake 
Tis  rarely  right  adjusted." 

Herein  we  may  see  the  flaw  in  that  old  Socratic  doctrine 
that  virtue  can  be  taught.  If  we  construe  it 
to  mean  that  a  teacher  in  morality  can,  by  the 
moral  instruc-  contact  of  mind  with  mind,  bring  his  disciple 
to  see  eye  to  eye  with  him  in  the  decisions  of 
life,  as  for  example  we  certainly  can  in  mathematics,  it  is 
not  true.  One  mind  can  teach  another  facts,  and,  given  a 
modicum  of  aptitude  to  work  upon,  can  bring  the  learner  to 
follow  scientific  arguments.  The  terms  used  (triangles,  re- 
sultants, vibrations,  acids,  and  so  forth)  will  here  mean  the 
same  to  the  mind  that  gives  and  the  mind  that  takes.  Not 
so  in  morality.  The  simplest  maxims  are  enough  to  disclose 
the  difference.  "  Honour  your  father  and  your  mother," 
"repay  that  obligation  you  incurred  last  year  in  money 
or  service,"  "  help  your  friends  in  their  troubles  "  —  there  is 
not  one  of  these  simple  injunctions,  be  it  expounded  with 
never  so  much  care,  but  will  convey  different  shades  of 
meaning,  fluctuating  according  to  the  temperament,  instincts, 
habits,  experience,  of  the  person  in  whose  ears  they  sound. 
For  as  soon  as  these  and  all  similar  injunc- 
whereathe  tions  are  applied,  forthwith  the  possibility  of 

issues  are  con-  the  widest  divergence  in  the  estimate  of  ac- 
crete. 

tualising  conditions  will  emerge.     So  much  so 

that  what  to  one  man  will  rank  as  the  sacred  and  cherished 
duty  of  honouring  father  and  mother  by  supporting  their  old 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  209 

age,  may  to  another  (who  still  owns  the  obligation  of  the  fifth 
commandment)  be  no  more  than  a  tax  thrust  down  by  coldness 
of  heart  to  the  rank  of  a  second-rate  obligation. 

It   is  in  this  aspect  that  justice  is  by  no  means  always 
done  to   the  value  of  goodness  of  character. 

,  .   ,,  The  popular 

Popularly,    goodness    is    not    especially    asso-   antithesis 
ciated  with  wisdom.     It  is  often  even  credited  between  good- 

ness  ot  charac- 

as  a  set-off  against  the  lack  of  wisdom.  "A  terandprac- 
good  man,"  they  say,  "  but  not  a  wise  one." 
Nor  need  we  deny  that  the  verdict  finds  a 
certain  justification  in  the  many  mixtures  of  virtue  with  folly 
that  human  nature  can  present.  Yet,  in  strictness,  the  an- 
tithesis is  false.  Wisdom  in  the  affairs  of  life  has  no  more 
indispensable  ally  than  goodness  of  character.  Goodness  of 
character  alone  can  purge  the  mind  of  that  distorted,  if  not 
sinister,  outlook  upon  life  which  betrays  our  steps  by  working 
havoc  with  all  sanity  of  judgment. 

A  second  condition  of  soundness  of  judgment  is  delibera- 
tive faculty.1  2.  sound- 

Roughly  speaking,  the  actual   decisions  of  nessofjudg- 

'     J  ..  -    ment  involves 

our  lives  are  concerned  with  the  discovery  of  ability  in  De- 


means to  ends.    The  larger  ends  at  any  rate 

are  past  deliberating  about,  and  the  thesis,  "Shall  the  ma- 

terial universe   be    dissolved?"  —  propounded 

.  i    ,       •  •    L  •     i       ji  Deliberation 

once  by  a  northern  debating  society  —  is  hardly  is  concerned  >t 


more  gratuitous  than  the  question,  "Shall  we 

serve   our   country?"    or   "Shall  we    pay   our 

debts?"  or  "Shall  we  tell   the  truth?"     These  larger  ends 

are,  in  short,  thrust  upon  us  by  the  clear  requirements  of 

our  station  in  life.     What  remains,  and  it  is  task  sufficient, 

is  to  discover  how  best  these  ends  may  be  compassed. 


1  Perhaps  I  may  again  refer  to  my  Ethics  of  Citizenship,  pp.  97-101, 
3rd  ed.,  where  Deliberation  is  briefly  discussed  in  some  of  its  political 
aspects. 


2io  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

Now  it  may  not  be  said  that  there  can  be  no  choice  cf 

intuition  means  without  deliberation.      Two  facts  show 

and  recourse         that  there  can.      One  is  the  existence  of  the 


impressive  faculty  of  intuitively  divining  means, 

[|£ceo.fDe~  as  soon  as  t^e  en<^  *s  so  mucn  as  mentioned. 
The  other  is  the  thrice  familiar  adoption  of 
precedents.  For,  of  course,  in  a  world  where  experiences 
repeat  themselves,  there  are  so  many  accepted  ways  of 
marching  to  familiar  ends  that  few  have  time  or  desire  to  make 
them  serious  matter  of  deliberation  or  discussion. 

Yet  the  need  for  deliberation  remains.     Intuition,  one  may 

Yet  neither  of  susPect>  especially  when  men  call  it  conscience, 
them  is  ade-  gets  more  than  its  due.  In  many  of  its  most 
striking  achievements  it  is  intuition  only  in 
appearance.  For  the  masters  of  decision  do  not  care  to  lay 
bare  the  workings  of  their  minds  in  their  hours  of  indecision, 
which  might  by  their  critics  be  construed  as  the  hours  of  their 
weakness.  And  so  it  comes  that  many  a  judgment  that  passes 
with  the  world  as  intuitive,  may  really  cover  up  the  brief  wear- 
ing tension  of  swift  deliberation.  And  though  it  may  not 
be  denied  that  deliberation  is  often  dispensed  with,  this  does 
not  touch  the  fact  that,  without  it,  there  can  be  no  security. 
For  though  the  intuitive  choice  of  means  is  wonderful  as 
clairvoyance,  like  clairvoyance  it  is  often  wrong,  and  none  the 
less  wrong  because  it  so  easily  mistakes  its  own  self-confidence 
for  a  proof  of  infallibility.  Hence  the  derisive  diatribes  of 

Bentham's         Bentham  against  Conscience  and  Moral  Sense 
attack  on  and  Common  Sense,  with  their  dogmatic  and 

self-sufficient  claim  to  solve  moral  problems  by 
the  easy  short-cut  of  intuition.  "  Another  comes  and  the 
phrase  changes.  It  is  no  longer  the  'moral  sense,'  it  is 
'  common  sense  '  which  tells  him  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad. 
This  'common  sense'  is  a  sense,  he  says,  which  belongs  to 
everybody  ;  but  then  he  takes  good  care,  in  speaking  of  every- 
body, to  make  no  account  of  those  who  do  not  think  as  he 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  211 

does1."  Hence  too  Bentham's  substitution  of  a  purely  utili- 
tarian Calculus  or  moral  arithmetic  for  intuition  in  all  its  forms. 
Not  that  we  need  pin  our  faith  to  Bentham  either.  His  own 
onesidedness  was  certainly  not  less  than  that  of  the  objects  of 
his  peculiar  detestation.  And  it  may  reasonably  be  argued 
that  the  imperious  urgency  of  life's  problems,  if  nothing  more, 
forces  intuitive  decisions  even  upon  the  utilitarian  mind.  Yet 
these  Benthamite  sarcasms  may  stand.  Nor  is  it  the  least  of 
the  services  of  Utilitarianism  that  it  was  never  weary  of  remind- 
ing the  world  that  it  is  one  thing  to  judge,  and  another  to  find 
securities  that  judgment  is  justified.  There  is  less  security  still 
in  the  easy  resort  to  precedents.  They  may  suffice  for  those 
whose  lives  run  in  ruts.  But  they  find  their  limitations  in  the 
fact  that,  in  the  changeful  scene  of  human  activities,  so  many 
decisions  are  hard  just  because  life  does  not  repeat  itself. 
With  deliberation,  on  the  other  hand,  comes  security,  such 
security  as  is  attainable  only  when  chosen  means  is,  intelligently 
and  by  actual  calculation,  linked  to  adopted  end. 

This  is  however  a  harder  task  than   might   at  first   sight 
appear.     For  there  are  two  aspects  under  which 

Deliberation 

the  means  to  an  end  may  be  regarded.     It  may  in  things  moral 
be  viewed  simply  as  a  means  and  nothing  more  :   {*  c°£^£***d 
the  sole  question  then  to  settle  is  if  it  leads  to  tions  of  moral 
the  end  by  the  directest  path.     But  it  may  have  value' 
a  second  aspect :  as  a  thing  to  be  done,  it  may  have  in  itself 
more  or   less   of  moral  worth.     These   two   aspects   may  of 
course  coincide.     The  shortest  cut  to  an  end  may  be  also  the 
most  moral  means  towards  it.     But  they  may  also  conflict — 
conflict  so  sharply  that  the  line  of  action  which  one  man  would 
welcome  as  the  straight  path  towards  an  end,  may  have  to  be 
set  aside  by  his  more  scrupulous  neighbour  for  one  that  is  less 
direct   but   more    moral.     Hence  the   soundness  of  the  well- 
worn  dictum  that  in  moral  action — as  contrasted  with  artistic 

1  Cf.  Bentham's   Theory  of  Legislation,  c.  III.  Section  I,  "The  Arbi- 
trary Principle." 


212  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

production  —  the  end  does  not  justify  the  means.     It   cannot 
justify  the   means,  because,  beyond   that  mere 

jufttfy  means0*    conduciveness  to  the  end,  in  which  moral  and 
artistic  means  are  alike,  the  means  to  a  moral 

end  ought  not  to  be  chosen  till  it  satisfies  the  moral  judgment 

of  the  chooser. 

It  is  this  that  complicates  deliberation  in  things  moral.     It 
is  not  the  same  as  asking  how  to  grow  a  crop  or 

Comparison  J  •* 

with  deiibera-  how  to  turn  out  a  commodity.  These  are  cases 
tion  in  the  arts.  to  ^  met  by  straightforward  calculation,  qualified 
only  by  considerations  of  material  cost.  Conscience  or  moral 
valuation  plays  at  most  but  a  subordinate  part.  But  it  is 
otherwise  in  matters  of  conduct.  The  means  has  there  to  be 
weighed  in  moral  scales;  and  thereby  come  divergencies  of 
estimate  to  which  there  is  nothing  adequately  parallel  in  the 
province  of  the  arts.  And  it  is  this,  this  moral  valuation,  that 
is  the  most  perplexing  part  of  the  problem. 

From  this  it  becomes  evident  that  what  has  been  specified 
as  the  first  condition  of  soundness  of  judgment 
*s  closely  interwoven  with  the  second.     Training 
character  helps     of  character  will  of  course  not  of  itself  enable  its 

Deliberation.  11-1  •«'      •  »«*   «      < 

possessor  to  deliberate  well  :  he  may  still  lack 
the  calculative  faculty  :  he  may  not  be  clever  enough.  But, 
by  the  moral  estimates  which  it  has  engrained  in  feeling  and 
habit,  it  will  save  him  from  cutting  short  deliberation  by  the 
unscrupulous  choice  which  brushes  aside  moral  misgivings,  if 
only  it  is  once  satisfied  that  means  will  lead  to  end  by  the 
shortest  path. 

For  it  is  important  here  to  remember  that  the  adoption  of 

a  good  end  will  not,  as  human  nature  is  consti- 
atop-       tuted,  secure  us  in  the  choice  of  corresponding 


tion  of  a  good       means.     Many  a  man,  firmly  resolved  to  serve 
ensure  the  his  city  or  help  his  friends,  has  dropped  woefully 


besTmelns  C  down  the  mOral  SCale  when  Jt  CamC  tO  the  aCtUal 

choice   of  the  means   whereby  these  excellent 


Sound  Moral  Judgment  213 

ends  were  to  be  gained.  His  failure  is  not  intellectual.  It 
lies  in  some  weakness  of  response  to  what  is  better,  some 
facility  of  response  to  what  is  lower,  and  this  again  has  its  root 
in  incapacity  of  instinctive  or  emotional  or  habitual  reaction  to 
moral  stimulus. 

There  are,  in  fact,  two  misconceptions  as  to  deliberation  in 
things  moral  which  must  here  be  carefully  ex- 
cluded.    On   the   one   hand,  it   is   not  to   be 
regarded  as  if  it  were  a  process  of  intellectual  of  mere  intei- 


calculation  like  the  working  out  of  a  theoretical  cs 


problem.  As  we  have  already  seen,  it  is  not  so 
purely  calculative  as  even  the  working  out  of  a  practical 
problem  in  the  arts.  For  at  every  suggested  step  there 
enters  a  practical  moral  valuation,  dependent  upon  the  whole 
previous  training  of  the  character.  On  the  noracompe. 
other  hand,  it  must  not  be  resolved  into  a  mere  tition  of  de- 
competition  between  isolated  objects  of  desire 
carried  on  till  the  strongest  appetite  is  liberated  by  finding  its 
appropriate  object1.  For  so  far  is  this  from  being  what  actually 
takes  place,  that  suggested  actions  which  appeal  to  the  most 
imperious  natural  desires  may  be  rejected  in  a  moment.  And 
the  reason  is  that,  despite  the  strength  of  their  attraction,  they 
do  not  find  a  welcome  in  that  context  of  character  which  has 
been  woven  together  by  the  nutrure  and  discipline  of  moral 
training.  The  final  preference,  the  choice  that  immediately 
precedes  action,  is  determined  by  the  whole  complex  psychical 
disposition  which  is  the  result  of  moral  education  and  ex- 
perience. In  other  words,  the  less  worthy  means  to  an  end, 
however  it  may  tempt  us  in  the  hour  of  weakness,  loses  its 
effective  attractiveness  and  its  power  over  us,  because  it  is 
alien  to  the  settled  context  of  a  virtuous  life.  Hence  the 
supreme  importance  of  education  from  earliest  years  in  preparing 

1  Cf.  Hobbes'  definition  of  Will.  "  In  Deliberation,  the  last  Appetite, 
or  aversion,  immediately  adhering  to  the  action,  or  to  the  omission  thereof, 
is  that  we  call  the  Will."  Leviathan,  Part  I.  c.  vi. 


214  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

us   for   those  deliberative   efforts   that   come   later   on.     Our 

Early  educa-  preferences  have  their  beginnings  in  childhood, 

tion  is  of  su-  and  in  the  objects  we  are  then  taught  to  seek  or 

ancTinpro°rt~  to  shun.     And  though  our  childish  preferences 

viding  the  are  modified  in  a  hundred  ways  as  the  circle  of 

conditions  of 

sound  DC-  our  interests  expands',  and  the  larger  outlook 

liberation.  upon  life  reiegates  this  preference  or  that  to  its 

due  place  of  insignificance,  still  it  is  the  system  of  sympathies 
and  antipathies,  of  attractions  and  repulsions,  which  grows 
steadily  with  our  growth,  that  to  the  last  profoundly  influences 
our  moral  valuations.  Under  favouring  auspices,  the  conditions 
of  healthy  and  sound  deliberation  are  thus  forming  many  a 
year  before  we  are  called  upon  to  deliberate. 

There  remains  a  third  condition  ;  a  sound  judgment  must, 
further,  be  an  enlightened  judgment. 

This  follows.  Deliberation  cannot  be  at  its  best  unless  it 
is  resourceful ;  and  it  will  never  be  resourceful 

3.    A  sound  ...     _  i  •      i 

judgment  till,  from  one  source  or  another,  it  has  gathered 

involves  a  sufficient  store  of  known  ways  in  which  ends 

Knowledge.  %  _ 

may  be  attained.     And  this  implies  knowledge. 

A  few  men  may  be  resourceful  on  slender  knowledge  :  they  are 

fertile  in  suggestion,  ingenious,  inventive.     But 

Resourceful- 
ness in  respect      the  average  man  may  not  count  upon  this.     If 

of  me; 
ends. 


he  is  to  escape  the  poverty  of  resource  that  rings 


the  changes  on  a  meagre  stock  of  trite  expedients, 
he  must  learn  either  from  his  own  experience  or  from  instruc- 
tion. All  profitable  deliberation  therefore  implies  this  enlight- 
enment in  respect  of  resource. 

It  follows  further — for  indeed  the  very  possibility  of  de- 
liberation implies  it — that  there  must  be  knowledge  of  the 
ends,  be  they  near  or  be  they  remote,  upon  which  deliberation 
is  directed.  And  it  is  here  of  especial  moment  that  this 
knowledge  be  definite  and  vivid. 

The  importance  of  a  definite  conception  (or  picture)  of  an 
end  is  that  it  imposes  an  instant  check  upon  irrelevancy  in 


Sotmd  Moral  Judgment  21$ 

deliberation.      Haziness  of  purpose  wastes  endless  time  over 
suggestions,  plans,  possibilities,  which  are  swept 
aside  in  a  moment  by  the  man  who  "  knows 


what  he  would  be  at."     And  if  the  end  be  not  *™*  ideas  of 
only  definite  but  vivid  it  brings  into  judgment 
the  invaluable    quality    of  promptitude.      This   is    especially 
needful  in  dealing  with  two  types,  diverse  enough 

....  .  .     .  For  this  is 

but  alike  in  their  seeming  impotence  to  bring  an  antidote  to 
deliberation  to  an  end.     The  one  is  the  plausible  Pro°ncr*stina- 
procrastinator.     He  is  fertile  in  expedients  —  so 
fertile   that   when   he   has  brought  himself  to  the  brink  of  a 
decision,  he  is,  to  the  torment  of  his  friends,  arrested  by  the 
thought  of  yet  some  other  way  of  setting  to  work.     The  other 
is  the  weaker  type  who  is  so  fearful  of  any  self-committal  at  all 
that,  even  when  there  is  no  alternative  open,  he  clutches  at 
delay  with  what  seems,  and  indeed  is,  infatuation.     There  is 
no  better  remedy  in  either  case  than  to  furnish  a  clear  and  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  end  to  be  achieved. 

It  is  here  that  Imagination  can  do  so  much  to  make  us 
practical.     Popularly,  Imagination  is  opposed  to      Imagination 
practicality  ;  and  set  down  as  the  mother  of  day-   creates 
dreaming1.     But  it  is  not  oftenest  so.     A  vividly  Practicality- 
imaged   end  is  the  very  antidote  to  indecision.      It  fills  the 
mind.      It   stirs   the   feelings.     It   brings   something   of  that 
quickening  of  desire  which  comes  from  actual  sight  of  what 
we  covet.     It  begets  the  temper  of  "now  or  never."     "The 
inferences  of  these  men,"  says  Burke  of  the  impatient  revo- 
lutionists, "lie  in  their  passions."     And  there  the  inferences 
will  always  be  apt  to  lie,  when  the  passions  are  inflamed  by 
vivid  imaginings.     The  risk  indeed  is  that  deliberation  may  be 
prematurely   cut   short,   and  the  die  cast,  before  the  moral 
judgment   has   come   to   a  real  decision  upon  the  course  to 
which  it  finds  itself  committed. 

i  Cf.  p.  175. 


216  Sound  Moral  Judgment 

It  remains  to  add  that  if  the  judgment  is  to  be  sound,  the 
ends  thus  conceived,  or  imaged,  must  be  good 
ends  thus  con-      (whatever  this  common  perplexing  word  may 
,Cmaged)0must      ultimately  mean1).     It  has   been  already   sug- 
be  morally  gested   that   absence   of    moral    worth    in    an 

adopted  end  need  by  no  means  find  a  pro- 
portionate reflection  in  the  choice  of  means.  If  a  man's  life, 
for  example,  be  on  the  slope  of  declension,  his  conscience 
may  long  continue  to  reflect  his  better  days  in  a  lingering 
preference  for  the  less  immoral  means  of  compassing  his  ends. 
He  may  embark,  for  example,  on  a  doubtfully  honest  com- 
mercial enterprise  while  yet  his  manner  of  pursuing  it  may  be 
influenced  by  the  traditions  of  more  honourable  days.  And 
similarly,  if  a  career  be  on  the  upward  slope,  the  old  mean 
selfish  estimates  may  strangely  survive,  even  long  after  the 
ends  have  been  purified  and  elevated.  Such  things  must  be 
accepted  as  part  of  the  inconsistencies  of  man.  The  leaven  of 
good  or  of  evil  does  not  all  at  once  leaven  the  whole  lump. 
Yet  the  central  fact  remains :  the  moral  imperfections  in  an 
end  will  always  be  as  a  steady  force  fighting  against  any 
scruples  of  conscience  that  tend  to  dictate  a  choice  of  means 
better  than  the  end  requires.  And  though  a  lingering  tradition 
of  moral  values  may  long  restrain  from  the  barefaced  selection 
of  what  is  simply  the  shortest  cut,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  adoption  of  a  doubtful  end  will  tend  in  the  long  run  to 
lower  the  means  chosen  to  its  own  level.  Hence  this  require- 
ment that,  if  the  judgment  is  to  be  sound,  the  ends  must  be 
good. 

Such  then  appear  to  be  the  main  conditions  of  a  sound 
judgment,  and  the  practical  question  next  to  be  dealt  with  is 
How,  and  how  far,  they  may  be  secured. 

1  Cf.  p.  237. 


The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment        217 


CHAPTER   II 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENT 

OF  the  conditions  of  sound  judgment  as  now  specified,  the 
first  is  certainly  not  beyond  the  educator's  art.      ^    A  trained 
Those  great  character-making  influences,  from   character 
the    Family   onwards,   which  have   been   dealt   sensitiveness 
with,  lie  ready  to  his  hand.     And  where  their  to  moral 
imperfections  have  been  corrected  by  recourse 
to  a  moral  ideal,  well-  constructed  and  habitually  enforced,  it 
may  be  assumed  that  the  character,  both  in  respect  of  emo- 
tional susceptibility  and  habitual  proclivities,  will  possess  that 
sensitiveness  to  moral  values  which  we  have  seen  to   be  so 
essential  to  all  sanity  of  judgment. 

We  may  therefore  pass  at  once  to  the  further  question  of 
education  in  Deliberation. 

Something   can   here   be   done   by  opening  the   eyes   to 
precedents.     For  precedents,  as   already  said,      2    Theedu. 
contribute  to  resourcefulness.     Sometimes  they  cation  of  de- 
may  suggest  the  action  that  exactly  meets  our 


case,  but  oftener  they  will  familiarise  the  mind      The  value  °f 

familiarity 

with  a  multitude  of  alternatives  amongst  which  with  prece- 
the  choice  of  means  to  ends  is  likely  to  move.   dents- 


218         The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment 

They  may  however  render  a  greater  service  still.  Rightly  re- 
garded, they  do  not  merely  furnish  materials  to  the  judgment : 
they  educate  the  faculty  of  judgment  itself.  A  craftsman,  if 
we  may  revert  to  this  analogy,  may  bring  back  from  a  visit 
to  studios  and  workshops  far  more  than  specific  hints  of  an 
immediately  useful  kind.  He  may  gain  a  general  insight  that 
comes  of  watching  men  of  diverse  capacities  and  methods  each 
working  in  his  own  way.  Similarly  in  life.  We  can  educate 
our  faculty  of  judgment  by  watching  those  whom  we  cannot 
possibly  think  of  imitating.  The  civilian  may  here  learn  from 
the  soldier,  the  student  from  the  merchant.  All  of  these  have 
light  to  throw  upon  the  manner  in  which  the  practical  judgment 
works  in  its  endlessly  varied  tasks  of  rinding  means  to  ends. 
Precedents,  however,  can  take  us  but  a  little  way.  When 
they  have  done  their  utmost,  they  leave  us  still 

respect*'11          to  face  the  task  of  learning  now  to  link  means  to 
deliberative         ends  in  those  concrete  problems  which  are  all 

Mrtu^sfift  our  own-  In  a  sense  this  is  not  within  the 
educator's  gift.  It  depends  partly  upon  natural 
constitution.  For  the  man  who  is  to  use  such  resources  as 
experience  has  given  him,  must  possess  that  natural  intelligence 
without  which  honesty  and  goodness  of  heart  will  grope  and 
blunder  to  the  end.  Mere  cleverness  of  course  has  its  snare : 
it  loses  touch  with  moral  values.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
because  cleverness  is  not  enough,  it  can  be  ignored.  It  is 
indispensable,  if  there  is  to  be  a  shrewd  perception  of  the 
effects  of  actions  upon  men  and  things.  Plans  must  be  laid, 
difficulties  foreseen,  failures  discounted.  And  these  are  things 
impossible  without  the  alert  intelligence  that  is  in  part  a  gift  of 
nature.1 

1  Cf.  Aristotle's  remarks  on  cleverness,  Ethics,  Bk.  vi.  xii.  9.  "  There 
is  a  faculty  or  power  which  we  call  cleverness  (Seu^rrjs)  — the  power  of 
hitting  upon  and  carrying  out  the  means  which  tend  to  any  proposed  end. 
If  then  the  end  be  noble,  the  power  merits  praise  ;  but  if  the  end  be  base, 
the  power  is  the  power  of  the  villain.  So  we  apply  the  term  clever  both 
to  the  prudent  man  and  the  villain."  (Peters'  trans.) 


The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment         219 

Native  intelligence  is  however  far  from  enough.  It  is  not 
enough,  even  when  united  with  good  habits.  It 

But  its 

must  find  its  development  through  practice,  development 
For  it  is  here  as  with  our  other  virtues.  It  is  p°^t"ethrough 
by  living  the  moral  life  that  men  fit  themselves 
to  live  it,  and  by  judging  that  they  become  competent  to 
judge.  They  learn  by  their  own  difficulties,  and  profit  by 
their  own  failures.  And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  recluse, 
or  the  academic  type,  will  seldom  attain  in  full  measure  that 
practical  wisdom  he  so  often  admires  in  men  of  affairs.  One 
may  discern  at  times  a  certain  wistfulness  in  men  who  have 
been  fated,  by  profession  or  circumstances,  to  be  spectators 
rather  than  actors  in  the  large  drama  of  practical  life,  and  yet 
wo  uld  fain  possess  that  practical  wisdom  which  can  never  be 
theirs  in  its  fullness,  not  because  they  are  lacking  in  intelligence, 
sympathy  or  energy,  but  for  the  simple  reason  that,  by  the 
conditions  of  their  lot,  they  are  denied  that  contact  with 
affairs  in  which  the  practical  judgment  lives  and  moves  and  has 
its  being.  Yet  such  are  not  without  their  compensations. 
They  escape  many  an  opportunity  of  blundering.  For,  if  the 
judgment  is  to  be  educated  through  its  exercise,  its  problems 
must  be  real  and  testing,  and,  where  this  is  so,  there  is  no 
escape  from  many  a  blunder.  The  educational  difficulty  here 
is  therefore  manifest :  How  find  securities  against  the  penalties 
of  blundering,  and  yet  concede  the  liberty  that  invites  them? 
For  it  is  no  absolute  principle  in  moral  education  to  save  from 
blunders.  The  more  hopeful  plan  is  to  risk  the  blunders,  and 
to  contrive  that  they  become  the  purchase  price  of  wisdom. 

Two  reminders  are  however  especially  needful  here.  One 
is  that  "  reactions  "  may  be  merciless  and  insidious 1.  If  left  to 
take  their  course  they  may  have  a  sequel  we  dare  not  face. 
Left  to  the  freedom  of  his  own  will,  as  a  well-known  catechism 
tells  us,  man  fell — and  is  for  ever  falling  anew — from  his  high 
estate.  Hence  if  we  would  concede  liberty — and  we  must — • 

1  Cf.  p.  84. 


22O          The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment 

one  condition,  known  to  us,  though  possibly  not  to  those  we 

are  educating,  must  be  the  taking  of  securities 

in  conceding     that,  if  need  be,  we  can  intervene  to  arrest  the 

deliberate,  disastrous   penalties   that   blunders    may    draw 

beckon* mUSt     down-     Only  tnen  can  we  concede  full  liberty 

against  the          with   easy    minds.      It   is   equally  important   to 

b°unnderUsenCe  °*    take   care   that   the   problems  with    which   the 

inexperienced  judgment   is  confronted  be   not 

too  hard.     Otherwise,  of  two  things,  one.     Either  we  foster  the 

reckless  confidence  that  feeds  upon  the  successful 

And  the 

problems  must       events  of  issues  that  have  not  been  squarely  faced  ; 
hard*'  t0°  or  we   fatally  damP  by  defeat  the  wholesome 

self-confidence  which  needs  well-merited  suc- 
cesses to  develop  it.  "  A  pupil  from  whom  nothing  is  ever 
demanded  which  he  cannot  do,  never  does  all  he  can,"  says 
Mill1.  He  is  speaking  of  intellectual  tasks.  But  if  this  some- 
what heroic  rule  is  to  be  applied  in  the  moral  sphere,  it  must 
be  qualified  by  the  watchful  prudence  that  suits  the  burden  to 
the  back. 

It  must  be  added  that  if  deliberative  faculty  is  to  be  equal 
to  its  tasks,  provision  must  be  made  for  training 

Deliberation  . 

ought  to  be  it  to  do  its  work  with  rapidity.  Life  is  so 
instinctive1101  largely  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  urgency,  that 
suspense  of  judgment  may  become  as  fatal  in 
action  as  it  is  admirable  in  science.  Whence,  indeed,  the 
pernicious  fallacy,  only  too  current,  that  somehow  deliberation 
had  better  be  suppressed,  and  supplanted  by  a  trust  in  those 
"  instinctive  "  decisions  that  hesitate  not  at  all.  This  is  the 
reverse  of  the  true  conclusion.  In  a  rational  being,  quick  to 
look  before  and  after,  deliberation  can  only  be  suppressed  by 
doing  violence  to  human  nature.  The  wiser  plan  is  to  en- 
courage and  to  develop  it  to  the  uttermost,  to  give  it  every 
opportunity  of  exercise,  so  that  it  may  become  swift  almost  as 
intuition  by  becoming  habitual.  For  the  swift  deliberation 
1  Autobiography ', 


The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment         221 

which  grasps  a  situation  at  a  glance  is  at  the  opposite  pole 
from  the  headlong  blundering  instinct  that  knows  not  what  it 
does. 

One  specific  for  this,  already  hinted  at,  is  a  clear  and  vivid 
conception  (or  image)  of  the  end  to  be  achieved,  3-  HOW 

1    we  come  to 

and  this  opens  the  way  to  the  question  how  such  know  our 
conceptions  are  best  attained.  ends> 

Not,  we  may  reply  at  once,  by  express  moral 
instruction.     When  any  person  is  sufficiently  matured  to  learn 
from  moral   instruction  what  are  the   ends  he 

We  learn 

ought  to  pursue,  the  lesson  has  already  in  effect   what  our  ends 
been  anticipated.     He  finds  himself  aware  of  a   "nee  more""" 
multitude  of  ends  which  he  is  already  pursuing,   than  by  in- 
He  is  aware  that  he  is  loving  kith  and  kin,  serving 
friends,  earning  livelihood,  preparing  for  profession,  beginning 
to  be  a  citizen.     He  does  not  become  aware  of  these  ends  by 
being  told  about  them.     He  has  learnt  them  by  the  gradual 
gospel  of  daily  experience.     It  is  as  Aristotle  says  :  he  who  has 
once  in  his  early  training  taken  practical  ends  into  his  life,  will 
find  small  difficulty  in  coming  to  know  what  they  are  *. 

This  is  one  more  proof  that  moral  instruction  cannot  do  so 
much  as  the  apostles  of  teaching  about  morality  sometimes 
suppose.  For  though  any  ordinary  youth  can  be  quickly  told 
what  his  main  duties  are,  no  one  will  venture  to  say  that  this  is 
worth  calling  moral  knowledge.  It  is  meagrely  "notional," 
not  real.  "  Mere  words "  we  sometimes  say  : 

J  '        Real  and 

and  we  say  well.      For  genuinely  to  know  an   notional 

end,  it   is  not  enough   to  read  about   it   in  a 

manual  of  duties,  or  to  have  it  recited  to  us  in 

a  sermon   however  eloquent.      The   point   has   already  been 

touched  in  the  discussion  of  Precept;2.     The  real  and  effective 

1  Ethics,  Bk.  I.  iv.  6.     "  The  man  who  has  had  a  good  moral  training 
either  already  has  arrived  at  principles  of  action,  or  will  easily  accept  them 
when  pointed  out."     (Peters'  trans.) 

2  Cf.  p.  183. 


222          The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment 

knowledge  of  our  ends  comes  by  pursuing  them.  Nor  is  there 
one  of  us  who  might  not  in  later  years  smile  at  the  recollection 
how  lightly  we  had  words  upon  our  lips  —  courage,  generosity, 
public  spirit,  integrity,  independence  and  a  hundred  more  —  the 
significance  of  which  it  has  needed  many  an  experience  of 
many  a  year  to  bring  us  to  understand.  For  it  is  the  in- 
stitutions that  direct  and  control  our  actions  that  are  to  the 
end  the  main  teachers  of  what  our  duties  are. 

Not  solely  however.  For  it  is  the  too  familiar  experience 
of  all  but  the  elect  that  even  our  most  intimate 
an(^  cherished  ends  —  our  zeal  for  public  causes, 


are  needed  to        Our  service  of  an  institution  or  a  firm,  even  our 

remind  us  ,-1  •,  •    i     /•  i 

what  our  care  for  those  we  love  —  sink  from  their  primacy 

leSi11  "re  UtiCS      m  our  "11  a§mati°ns  under  the  deadening  influence 

of  familiarity.  Hence  the  need  of  voices  to  tell 
us  in  reawakening  words  what  we  are  doing.  And  for  these 
we  need  not  look  in  vain.  There  are  satirists  enough  to  lash 
our  shortcomings,  cynics  to  probe  our  descent  upon  lower 
motives,  moralists  to  expound  our  duties,  preachers  to  touch 
our  consciences,  prophets  with  their  burning  words  to  kindle 
anew  the  smouldering  altar  of  our  duties.  It  is  not  the  highest 
service  of  these  to  tell  us  of  things  new.  Our  debt  is  greater. 
For  without  them  we  should  miss  the  significance  of  the  duties 
that  are  at  our  doors  and  amongst  our  feet  —  the  duties  whose 
meaning  we  forget  in  our  flagging  and  obstructed  daily  efforts 
to  fulfil  them. 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  to  know  our  duties,  not  even 

when  these  enkindling  influences  conspire  with 
ends  must  experience  in  keeping  them  before  us.  These 

unified  irfa          duties  must  be  gathered  up  into  an  ideal  which 
moral  ideal  of       we  have  made  our  own.     We  have  already  seen 

that  no  educator  can  afford  to  leave  those  he 
cares  for  to  become  simply  what  social  institutions  would  make 
them,  but  must  work  up  to  some  coherent  plan  which  he 
believes  will  rectify  the  false  and  often  distorted  emphasis  and 


The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment         223 

ill-proportioned   valuations   of  all  actual   societies1.     What  is 
thus  necessary  for  the  educator  in  moulding  the  lives  of  others, 
is  equally  necessary  for  the  individual  when  he  claims  to  think 
his  own  thoughts,  and  judge  his  own  judgments,  and  take  the 
conduct  of  his  life   into  his  own   hands.     For      Foritisthus 
then  alone  will  he  have  adequate  security  that  we  know  them 
his  ends  are  good.  begood' 

There  is  a  parallel  here  between  the  world  of  knowledge 
and  the  world  of  action.     In  both,  security  lies 
in  coherency  of  view.     If  we  wish  to  be  assured   ^^^^ 
that   a  perception  is  real  and  not  illusory,  we   ends  in  the 
must  ask  if  it  finds  a  place  in  the  context  of  jjfe"01*11 
systematised  knowledge.     This  is  the  final  test. 
And  similarly,  if  we  would  know  that  an  end  is  good,  we  must 
be  able  to  satisfy  ourselves  that  it  is  in  harmony  with  a  settled 
and  coherent  ideal  of  life.     This,  it  is  true,  is  a  test  that  is  too 
often  disregarded.     Men   are  content   to  live   from   hand   to 
mouth.       They   trust   the   isolated    intuition   or   the   isolated 
precept.     And  there  are  times  when  this  is  permissible  enough 
or  even  laudable.     When  we  are  dealing  with  the  minutiae  of 
conduct,  it  is  not  worth  while,  it  smacks  of  pedantry,  to  invoke 
anything   so  imposing  as  a  moral  ideal.     And  there  may  be 
occasions  when  swift  decisions,  even  upon  graver  matters,  are 
so  imperative  that  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  fall  back  upon 
our  own  intuitions  or  someone  else's  advice.     Yet  this  is  not 
the   best.     Even  when   the   burden   of   decision    falls    upon 
intuition,  there  is  little  safety,  if  there  be  not  in  the  mind  a 
well-compacted  and  habitually-cherished  ideal  with  which  each 
isolated  end  that  claims  adoption  may  be  confronted. 

We  may  see  this  clearly  in  either  of  two  experiences. 

The  first  is  when  some  end  that  tempts  us  is  bad.     The 
inherent  weakness   of  a   bad   end  does  not  of     „ 

How  do  we 

course  lie  in  its  lack  of  attractiveness.     It  may  know  an  end 
appeal  to  a  masterful  passion ;  and  it  may  even  * 

1  Cf.  p.  112  et  seq. 


224  The  Education  of  the  Moral  Judgment 

by  its  glamour  sophisticate  the  reason.  The  fortunate  weak- 
ness lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  usually  an  isolated  end,  capable 
perhaps  of  carrying  us  captive  by  sudden  assault,  but  incapable 
of  finding  a  place  in  the  settled  context  of  a  good  man's  plan 
of  life.  Hence  the  result.  Its  badness  stands  detected,  not 
because  some  mysterious  and  indescribable  moral  instinct  re- 
volts against  it,  but  because  its  adoption  would  bring  into  the 
slowly  and  laboriously  knit  fabric  of  the  ideal  the  rift  that 
makes  for  far-spreading  disintegration  and  ruin. 

The  second  case  is  when  an  end  has  to  be  discarded,  not 
because  it  is  bad  but  because  some  other  end  is 

How  do  we  i  •      i  11-  n' 

know,  in  a  better.     This  happens  when  there  is  a  conflict 

dutta? which  of  duties-  And  it:  is  an  infinitely  harder  and 
duty  is  to  be  more  wearing  problem  than  the  other,  because 
both  competing  ends,  being  good,  can  claim 
kindred  with  our  ideal.  It  stands  to  the  other  as  evil  strife 
that  ranks  patriots  in  hostile  camps  stands  to  a  war  of  resist- 
ance to  invasion.  It  is  therefore  a  conflict  that  may  be  slow 
of  settlement.  In  truth  it  is  a  conflict  that  will  never  end,  or 
end  only  by  some  random  preference,  if  those  who  are  torn 
asunder  by  it  cannot  decide  which  end  is  most  consistent  with 
that  ideal  which,  in  the  long  course  of  moral  development,  has, 
been  taking  hold  of  mind,  heart,  and  will.  The  conflict  may 
come  in  many  forms.  It  may  be  between  liberality  and  thrift, 
between  private  friendship  and  public  interest,  between  modest 
luxury  and  the  claims  of  charity,  between  saying  what  one 
thinks  and  refusing  to  say  what  would  alienate  or  wound.  But 
whatever  it  be,  it  is  judgment  in  the  light  of  an  ideal  that  alone 
can  loose  the  knot. 

It  is  therefore  of  moment  to  ask  how  such  an  ideal  comes 
to  take  body  and  shape. 


Growth  of  the  Individuals  Ideal  22$ 


CHAPTER   III 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL'S  IDEAL 

NOTHING  is  commoner  than  for  a  man  to  have  an  idea 
and  yet  to  be  unable  to  tell  whence  it  has  come 

r         i        i  r          1  r  1  The  growth 

to  him.     And  this,  not  for  lack  of  self-analysis,  of  the  indi- 


but  because  the  ideals  that  really  dominate  our  ? 

J  is  unconscious. 


vidual's  ideal 

judgments  and  shape  our  lives  do  not  descend 
upon  us,  as  if  from  the  heavens,  full-formed.  They  have  a 
very  different  history.  They  grow  with  our  growth  from  early 
years,  and,  if  we  be  morally  alive,  they  never  cease  to  grow 
even  to  the  last.  It  is  fortunate  that  it  is  so.  For  the  task  of 
adjusting  our  lives  to  our  ideal,  and  our  ideal  to  our  lives,  is 
only  possible  because  it  is  so  tentative  and  gradual. 

It  follows  that  the  history  of  an  individual's  ideal  is,  in  a 
large  measure,  a  record  of  the  influences  under 
which   he   comes,   from    the    Family   onwards.     The  content 

of  the  ideal 

These  are,  in  the  first  instance,  influences  for  comes  through 


shaping  conduct.     But  they  also  lodge  gradually 

in   the   mind    images  and    ideas   of   the   ends 

pursued.     The   process  is,  of  course,  far  from  obviously  uni- 

form   and   unbroken.     There   is,  for   long,  much  that  lightly 

comes  and  as  lightly  goes,  as  the  romantic  visions  inspired  by 


226  Growth  of  the  Individuals  Ideal 

story-books  and  youthful  hero-worship  find  their  early  un- 
disputed ascendancy  challenged  by  growing  perception  of  the 
homely  demands  of  daily  life  and,  later,  of  the  sterner  calls  of 

day  and  way  or  public  service.  From  very  early 
fuusionment.  years,  moreover,  illusion  brings  its  shadow  of 

disillusionment.  There  is  disillusionment  even 
in  the  step  from  Home  to  School,  as  there  is  a  deeper  dis- 
illusionment when  the  youth,  hitherto  bred  in  the  seclusion  of 
Home  and  School,  is  brought  for  the  first  time  face  to  face 
with  the  work  of  the  world,  with  which  he  has  hitherto  had  but 
a  hearsay  acquaintance.  It  is  always  an  epoch  when  the 
largeness  and  hurrying  indifference  of  the  world  of  business,  of 
social  relations,  and  by  and  by  of  political  action,  begin  to 
dawn  upon  the  mind.  Yet  all  this  disillusionment  —  and  it 
does  not  cease  with  youth  —  is  never  to  be  lamented.  Really 
it  is  a  step  to  discovery.  Something  no  doubt  is  lost.  We 
may  not  flatter  ourselves  that  even  a  thrice-fortunate  develop- 
ment gathers  up  within  it  all  the  true  appreciations  of  childhood 
and  youth. 

"  Nothing  can  bring  back  the  hour 
Of  splendour  in  the  grass,  of  glory  in  the  flower." 

Yet  the  very  shocks  of  surprise  that  dissolve  these  dreams  of 
the  morning  are  but  signs  that  experience  is  bringing  into  life 
new  ends  to  be  wrought  into  a  richer  ideal.  For  they  are 
possible  only  because  the  years  bring  an  appreciation  of  the 
magnitude  and  reality  of  many  aims  and  interests  which 
constitute  the  very  stuff  and  substance  of  human  life.  Least 
of  all  is  an  ideal  to  be  viewed  as  peculiarly  the 
possession  of  youth,  doomed  to  be  pared  down 


the  possession  and  shorn  of  its  glory  by  the  remorseless  years. 
Such  regrets  may  be  left  to  sentimentalists.  A 
youthful  ideal  is  too  devoid  of  substance  to  be  overmuch 
bewailed.  The  really  loftier  ideal  is  to  be  sought  at  the  end 
of  life,  not  at  its  beginning.  For  it  can  come  into  full  and 
effective  being  only  when  grey  hairs  have  brought  home  the 


Growth  of  the  Individual's  Ideal  227 

knowledge  how  many  and  how  substantial  are  the  ends  for 
which  men  have  it  in  them  to  live  1. 

In   the   light   of  what   has  already  been   said   about   the 
educative  influence  of  institutions  it  is  needless 

Two 

to  recapitulate  the  precise  elements  which  each  tendencies: 


contributes.     It  will  be  enough  to  say  that  the 

results  are,  in  the  main,  two.     On  the  one  hand,   enriched  in 

as  the  individual  comes  to  be  more  and  more 

conscious  of  the  ends  for  which  these  institutions  severally 

exist,  there  settles  down  in  the  mind,  never  again  to  be  dis- 

lodged, a  variety  of  ends  which  are  the  materials  out  of  which 

his  moral  ideal  is  made.     On  the  other  hand      (b)   andthey 

these  ends  do  not  lie  in  the  mind  loose  and  gain  in  unity 

apart.     There  is  also  at  work  that  striving  after  a 

some  kind  of  coherency  and  unity  which  seems  to  be  of  the 

essence  of  a  rational  being.     Such  striving  is  far  from  conscious 

of  itself  at   first.     It  is  also  tentative,  and  it  may  often  be 

wayward  in  its  constructive  efforts.     And  it  falls  short  in  ways 

to  be  shortly  seen.     Yet  it  is  perpetually  at  work.    And  though 

a  quite  settled  and  coherent  plan  of  life  is  far  from  common, 

the  majority  are  alive  to  its  value  sufficiently  to  resent  even 

with  asperity  the  imputation  of  incoherency  of  purpose.     Even 

the   erratic    are   under   illusions   as   to   their   own   admirable 

consistency. 

Yet  the  somewhat  hap-hazard  plans  of  life  which  thus  shape 
themselves  have  definite  imperfections,  and  these  may  take  one 
or  other  of  two  pronounced  forms. 

In  the  first  place,  they  may  need  enrichment.     They  are 
rich  in  possibility  just  because  they  are  poor  in      yet  ideals 
content.     But  this  enrichment  they  may  never  are  apt  to  be 
find.    Under  the  tyrannous  influences  of  a  world 
that  wields  the  whip  of  compulsory  work,  and  especially  under 
the  influence  of  the  Division  of  Labour  which  is  the  accepted 
iron  law  of  working,  the  ideal  may  harden,  and  indeed  shrink, 
1  Cf.  P.  243. 


228  Growth  of  the  Individual 's  Ideal 

into  inhuman  narrowness.  It  remains  an  ideal :  few  ideals,  in 
point  of  fact,  exact  more  than  those  of  the  stunted  victims  of 
penury,  avarice,  or  ambition.  But  these  are  ideals  rather  of 
self-mutilation  than  of  self-development.  In  an  industrial  and 
commercial  country  this  is  the  greater  danger. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  contrary  fatality  may  happen.     In 
sanguine  types  at  any  rate,  especially  where  free 
choice  is  a  reality  in  their  lives,  expanding  ex- 
perience may  disclose  so  many  ends  that  such 
unity  as  the  youthful  ideal  may  have  had,   falls  asunder,  as 
life  goes  on,  into  fragmentariness  of  aim.     And  then  we  have 
the  multiform  product  inconsistent  with  itself,  because  its  ends 
are  so  inconsistent  with  each  other  that  all  discernible  unity  is 
lost. 

These  possible  disasters,  however,  have  happily  each  their 
preventives. 

Narrowness  may  be  met  by  recourse  to  the  larger  life  re- 
Narrowness  vealed  in  Literature.  There  is  no  stronger  plea 
of  ideal  -  for  Biography,  Drama,  or  Romance,  or  for  any 

ied>  imaginative  expansion  of  interests,  than  that 
founded  upon  the  need  for  them  as  counteractives  of  the 
pitiable  contractedness  of  outlook  begotten  of 
Division  of  Labour.  The  result  no  doubt  may 
through  the  have  its  incongruities.  The  ideal  outlook  may 
^"ke^word.  be  so  big  :  the  working  life  so  small.  Hence 
the  notion,  not  uncommon,  that  popular  educa- 
tion, in  a  nation  ruled  by  specialisation,  is  a  cause  of  discontent 
and  embitterment.  This  is  at  most  a  fractional  truth.  The 
other  side  of  it  is,  that  from  this  imaginative  contact  with 
lives  quite  other  than  its  own,  the  mind  may  come  back  with  a 
juster  and  an  enriched  view  of  the  manifold  ways  in  which 
Duty  fulfils  itself  through  the  diverse  capacities  and  diverse 
opportunities  of  men.  It  is  not  needful  perhaps  to  be  hard 
upon  those  who,  as  they  read  of  achievement  that  is  not 
destined  to  be  theirs,  cannot  smother  the  corrosive  thought  of 


Growth  of  the  Individuals  Ideal  229 

the  poverty  of  their  own  lot.  But  the  better,  and  the  more 
human,  reflection  is  that  Moral  Law  is  so  great  a  thing  that  it 
needs  for  its  realisation  the  many  modes  of  many  lives ;  and 
that  it  is  entirely  possible  to  rise  to  an  intense  sympathetic 
interest  in  other  lives — lives  which  after  all  are  linked  to  ours 
by  the  organic  bonds  of  social  life.  Nor  need  the  result  be 
thus  impersonal.  Many  an  end  really  within  the  individual's 
reach  is  never  grasped  simply  because  it  is  concealed  by  the 
screen  of  removable  ignorance ;  and  many  a  man  in  later  years 
can,  with  bitter,  unavailing  regret,  see  clearly  how  his  whole 
career  might  have  been  different,  if  only  this  end  or  that  had 
been  brought  within  his  ken  by  the  written  or  the  spoken 
word. 

And  yet  it  is  not  by  books  or  words  that  the  outlook  is 
most  effectually  broadened  and  enriched.     For      For  the  masg 
the  ends  which  are  thus  disclosed,  even  when   of  men'  how- 

,  ,  ,  i       •      11  ever,  the  ideal 

they   are    eagerly    and   sympathetically    appre-   is  enriched 
hended,    are  only  too   apt  to  remain  nominal   more  by  actual 

7.  *  contact  with 

and  notional.     To  the  mass  of  men  ends  that   political  and 
are  genuinely  to   enter  into  their  ideals   must   relieious  life- 
come   in    less    purely    intellectual    guise.     They    must  come 
through  the  strong  alliance  of  idea  and  practice.     And  it  is 
for  this  reason  that  the  wider,  more  impersonal  interests  are 
more  likely  to  take  their  place  in  the  average  man's  plan  of  life 
through   the    enlarging   experiences    of   citizenship,    and    the 
influence  of  those  religious  organisations  that  constrain  their 
members  to  live  for  corporate  and  distant  ends. 

Fragmentariness    of   ideal,    again,    has    its    corresponding 
antidotes.     Thus  unity  may  come  from  a  Moral 

...  Influences 

Code  which  gathers  up  in  its  decalogue,  or  other  that  make  for 
table  of  the  law,  the  cardinal  duties  of  life.     Or  unity  of  idea1' 
it  may  come  from  a  type  which  is  the  incarnation  of  these. 
The  most  of  men  may  very  likely  ask  for  nothing  more.     For 
many,  the  solution  of  all  problems  is  found  in  judging  as  they 
think  their  chosen  Type  would  judge.     Yet  Code  and  Type 


230  Growth  of  the  Individuats  Ideal 

have  alike  their  limitations  *.  And  this  being  so,  the  question 
presses  if  there  be  any  further  resource.  It  is  clear  at  any 
rate  what  is  needed.  It  is  a  standard  by  which  the  com- 
parative value  of  ends  may  be  estimated,  and  which  may  be 
free  at  once  from  the  rigidity  of  the  Moral  Code,  and  from  the 
limited  completeness  of  the  concrete  Type.  Such  standards 
exist.  They  are  found  in  those  conceptions  of 
of  a  concep-  the  supreme  End  of  life  which  philosophy  has 

End  of  life  beCn    givmg    t0     thC    W°rld    SinCG    thC    da^S    °f 

Socrates.  They  are  diverse  as  the  philosophies 
that  have  devised  them;  Duty,  Perfection,  Greatest  Happi- 
ness, Greatest  Blessedness,  Self-realisation,  and  the  rest.  But 
they  all  alike  are  fitted  to  render  a  twofold  service.  In  the 
first  place,  they  work  for  unity  because  they  involve  the  belief 
that  all  the  duties  of  life  are  but  so  many  diverse  modes  of 
approach  to  a  single,  all-pervading  End ;  and  secondly,  they 
prepare  the  way  for  the  discovery — so  difficult  for  the  man 
of  Codes — that  under  the  fluctuating  conditions  of  human 
capacity  and  circumstance,  the  place  of  prior  obligation  may 
be  held  now  by  this  duty  and  now  by  that.  He  who  looks  for 
ever  to  a  Code  is  only  too  apt  to  claim  for  every  command- 
ment in  it  an  equal,  or  in  other  words  an  impossible,  absolute 
authority.  He  who  looks  to  a  Type,  even  when  he  goes 
behind  the  letter  to  the  spirit,  is  prone  to  exaggerate  what  is 
local  and  limited.  But  he  who  grasps  the  idea  of  an  End  has 
risen  to  what  is  universal,  and  will  be  careful  to  promote  no 
duty  to  the  place  of  absolute  authority,  except  the  one  supreme 
duty  of  pursuing  the  End  in  the  highest  practicable  mode. 
This  is  really  an  immense  advance.  It  is  delusive  to  sup- 
pose that  morality  requires  us  in  the  interests  of  consistency 
once  for  all  to  grade  our  duties  in  a  fixed  order  of  relative 
importance.  It  is  not  thus  that  a  living  unity  comes  into  an 
ideal.  Living  unity  follows  a  firm  grasp  of  the  End.  For  it  is 
only  when  this  is  achieved  that  the  lesser  ends  of  life  begin  to 
1  Cf.  pp.  169  and  183. 


Growth  of  the  Individual's  Ideal  231 

be   seen   in   their   true    light  as  varied  yet  kindred  ways  of 
working  towards  one  supreme  event. 

It  is  here  that  philosophy  has  rendered  the  world  memor- 
able  service.     True  to  its   tradition   of  seeing   philosophy 
"the  one  in  the  many,"  it  has,  amidst  all  the   can  render  the 


controversies  of  the  schools,  consistently  taught 

that  the  inculcation  of  duties,  however  shining,   formulating 

will  stiffen  into  formalism,  if  it  be  not  saved 

from    this   by    a   vitalising   and   unifying   conception    of  the 

supreme    End    upon    which    the    otherwise    dispersed     and 

scrambling  activities  of  human  life  may  be  seen  to  converge. 

Nor   is  it  necessary,  in  order  to  reap  the  fruits  of  such    a 

conception    that    the    average    man    should   himself    become 

philosopher,  and  graduate  in  the  philosopher's  analysis.     This 

would    be    an     absurd,     an     impossible     requirement.     The 

practical    world    too    manifestly    cares    little    for   philosophic 

theories  of  what  it  is  doing.     It  does  not  seem 

even  to  miss    their    absence.     The    multitude,      Philosophy, 

as    Plato    said,    are    incapable    of    philosophy.   st°a™dsUi'  need 

Driven  on  by  the  relentless  urgencies   of  life   of  interpreters 

„,.,..          ,         r  .  r          i_  •      to  popularise 

—  urgencies  of  livelihood,  ot  passion,  of  ambi-  its  conceptions. 
tion,  of  impatience  —  it  has  not  the  time,  even 
if  it  had  the  appetite  and  faculty,  for  philosophising  about 
the  End  of  life.  Yet  what  a  man  may  not  be  able  to  take 
from  philosophy,  he  may  find  in  another  way.  He  may  turn, 
he  does  turn,  to  the  preachers,  teachers,  moralists,  satirists, 
essayists,  poets  of  his  generation.  These  are  the  middlemen 
of  the  spiritual  world.  They  stand  between  the  philosopher 
and  the  multitude.  For  they  know  how  to  translate  into  terms 
of  imagination  and  rhetoric  those  conceptions  of  the  End 
which  appear  in  the  philosopher's  pages  in  difficult  analysis 
and  definition.  It  may  be  that  these  "  middlemen  "  do  not 
listen  to  philosophy  enough.  It  is  a  grievous  fact  that  some  of 
them  so  far  betray  their  trust  as  to  become  misologoi  from 
whom  philosophy  receives  but  scant  justice.  Yet  the  hope 


232  Growth  of  the  Individual 's  Ideal 

remains  that  through  them  the  old  but  never  obsolete  lesson  to 
look  to  the  End  may  filter  down  into  the  thought  and  practice 
of  the  world.  It  is  all-important  that  it  should.  A  theory  of 
the  End  of  life  may  be  important ;  it  is  not  a  necessity.  But 
convictions  about  the  End  are.  For  without  them,  there  can 
never  come  into  our  ideal  that  well-knit  yet  flexible  unity  and 
coherency  which  make  it  a  serviceable  touchstone  of  the  com- 
parative goodness  of  our  ends. 

And  yet,  for  those  who  are  equal  to  it,  a  theory  of  the 
moral  ideal  has  its  advantages ;  and  it  remains  briefly  to  state 
what  they  are. 


Practical  Value  of  a  Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal    23  j 


CHAPTER   IV 

PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  A  THEORY  OF 
THE  MORAL  IDEAL 

WHEN  anyone  goes  in  search  of  a  theory  of  his  moral  ideal, 
it  will  be  mainly  under  a  scientific  impulse.     For 
unless  he  have  this,  he  will  probably  rest  content     A  theory 

.of  the  moral 

with  one  or  other  of  those  time-honoured  rivals  ideal  has 
of  theory,  Authority  or  Intuition.  Yet  the 
ethical  thinker,  and  those  who  care  to  follow 
him,  need  not  be  here  less  just  to  themselves  than  is  necessary, 
nor  deny  themselves  the  added  incentive  that  may  be  drawn 
from  the  fact  that  there  are  certain  quite  specific  ways  in  which 
a  theory  of  the  ideal  practically  strengthens  all  who  can 
receive  it. 

Thus  it  is  theory,  and  theory  alone,  that  can  adequately 
uphold  the  moral  ideal  in  the  face  of  criticism. 
It  is  of  course  not  necessary  to  meet  criticism  it  possible  to* 


by  theory.  There  is  a  type  who  may  prefer 
rhetorical  projectiles,  and,  in  Johnsonian  fashion, 
when  his  pistol  misses  fire  knock  down  his  opponent  with 
the  butt  end.  Another  may  invoke  Authority.  A  third 
may  appeal  to  Conscience.  They  are  all  effective  methods, 
and  we  need  not,  in  this  so  combative  world,  disparage 
even  the  first.  Yet  he  who  limits  himself  to  these  must 
pay  a  price  —  the  price  of  parting  company  with  the  more 
rational  minds  of  his  generation.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is 
the  perception  of  the  risk  of  this  that  has  prompted  some  of 
the  greatest  efforts  of  ethical  speculation  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Nor  would  Plato,  Socrates,  and  Aristotle  be  numbered 
amongst  the  conscript  fathers  of  philosophy  had  they  not,  in 
the  spirit  of  moral  reformers,  set  themselves  to  deliver  the 
better  minds  of  their  generation  from  the  Sophistic  theories 


234     Practical  Value  of  a  Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal 

that  Might  is  Right,  and  individual  hedonistic  self-interest  the 
measure  of  morality. 

The  situation  repeats  itself.  In  every  developed  com- 
munity there  are  men  born  and  bred  with  the  rationalising 
instinct.  They  cannot  shut  their  ears  to  theories,  least  of  all 
to  theories  that  subject  their  moral  ideals  to  searching  criticism. 
They  cannot  rest  content  to  invoke  in  reply  dogmas  however 
consecrated,  or  intuitions  however  prophetic.  They  cannot  in 
a  word  stop  short  till  they  have  either  surrendered  to  the 
theories  that  are  negative  and  subversive,  or  ousted  them  by  a 
theory  that  can  justify  their  counter-convictions. 

Akin  to  this  is  the  further  service  that  theory  can  do  much 

to  sustain  belief  in  the  essential  reality  of  the 

2.  it  can  moral  ideal  in  periods  of  transition  and  doubt: 

also  sustain 

belief  in  the  For  it  is  the  theorist's  task  to  analyse 

moraUdeai!6  experience;  not  simply  his  own  experience, 

which"  may  be  a  little  thing,  but  that  larger 
moral  experience  of  the  world  that  is  written  in  social  institu- 
tions, and  not  least  in  the  lives  of  the  reformers,  teachers, 
saints,  heroes,  of  our  race.  From  such  analysis  he  does  not 
return  empty  handed,  and  in  particular  he  brings  back  two 
convictions.  One  is  the  lesson,  writ  large  on  the  world's 
history,  that  it  is  the  fate  of  all  particular  modes  or  forms 
of  moral  ideal,  from  which  nothing  can  save  them,  to  yield  to 
the  slow  sap  of  the  criticism  of  the  morrow  ;  and  the  other  the 
complementary  conviction  that  the  moral  life  of  which  man  is 
capable,  and  which  indeed  he  feels  imperatively  bound  to 
realise,  remains  a  far  richer  and  loftier  thing  than  has  ever  yet 
found  reflexion  in  the  imperfect  mirror  of  human  life.  Not 
that  a  man  need  be  a  theorist  to  come  to  these  convictions. 
Are  they  not  written  in  the  pages  of  ethical  prophets  and 

teachers  who,  like  Carlyle,  flout  and  scoff  at 
theorist  and  theory  ?  For  it  is  the  glory  of  the  ethical  pro- 


tnat  he  nas  an  eve  tnat  can  divide  asunder 
form  and  substance,  and  discriminate  between 


Practical  Value  of  a  Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal    235 

those  ideals  which  are  but  perishable  textures  of  human 
imagination,  and  that  imperishable  fore-felt  and  in  part  fore- 
seen moral  End,  for  which  the  imagination  of  successive  gene- 
rations is  for  ever  striving  to  weave  a  worthier  vesture.  Such 
advantage  therefore  as  the  theorist  may  have  does  not  lie  in 
his  results,  but  in  the  fact  that,  in  his  case,  the  results 
rest,  not  upon  the  fitful  revelations  of  intuition,  which  may 
so  easily  mistake  the  light  that  leads  astray  for  light  from 
Heaven,  but  upon  the  definite  and  systematic  analysis  of 
experience. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  beyond  all  others  the  ethical 
theorist  can  afford  to  look  on  without  misgiving  at  the  con- 
tradictions of  moral  standards,  the  conflict  of  duties,  the 
dilemmas  of  Casuistry,  the  negations  of  the  sceptic.  Not  only 
will  he  have  discounted  these  by  anticipation.  In  those  very 
diversities  and  collisions  of  moral  standards  which  are  so 
often  the  terror  of  the  dogmatic  mind,  and  in  the  spectacle 
always  tragical  enough  of  some  cherished  ideal  crumbling 
before  mordant  criticism,  he  will  see  but  one  more  proof  of 
the  exhaustless  vitality  of  the  moral  spirit  of  man  which,  for 
ever  on  the  march,  does  but  "  strike  its  tent  in  order  to  begin 
a  new  journey." 

It  is  a  greater  service  still  that  a  theory  of  the  ideal  can 
bring  all  who  are  in  earnest  with  it  at  least  one 
step  nearer  that  intelligent  service  which  alone  is  a  theory  of  the 


perfect  freedom.     There   is   a   morality  which 
never  asks  the  reason  Why  for  the  ideal  up  to  remains 
which  it  nobly  strives  to   live.     And  when  .  we  ^  imperfect> 
meet  the  men  who  exemplify  it,  we  call  them  with  Wordsworth 
the  "bondsmen"  of  Duty,  not  stumbling  at  the  servile  word 
because  the  service  is  so  high.     The  word  is  however  perhaps 
apter  than  we  think.     For  bondsmen  and  no  better  they  still 
are,  and  bondsmen  they  will  remain,  so  long  as  the  grounds 
upon  which  service  is  rendered  are  unexamined  and  unintelli- 
gible.    For  if  Reason  be  indeed  of  the  essence  of  man,  the 


236     Practical  Value  of  a   Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal 

service  even  of  a  God  is  but  a  loftier  kind  of  slavery  when  it 
leaves  the  reason  of  the  servant  darkened. 

It  is  here  that  philosophy  brings  its  message  of  emanci- 
pation.    All  ethical  Schools  (unless  we  except 
folth^mwai        Intuitionism,  which  is  a  kind  of  despair  of  expla- 
emancipation        nation)  attempt  to  explain  the  recognised  obli- 

~  Sation  to  live  for  an  ideal-  Their  solutions  are 
different :  their  aim  is  one.  They  ask  the  reason 
Why,  in  the  belief  that  some  answer  is  possible ;  and  though  it 
be  granted  that  these  answers,  if  only  because  they  are  so 
divergent,  must  needs  fail  to  satisfy,  such  an  admission  cannot 
alter  the  fact  that,  despite  all  their  dissonances,  they  bring  us 
nearer  that  reasonable  service  to  which  the  bondsmen  of  duty 
must  come,  if  they  are  to  strip  off  wholly  the  livery  of  moral 
servitude. 

This  does  not  mean  that  even  a  perfect  theory  of  the  moral 
ideal  —  were  such  a  thing  conceivable  —  would  of  itself  make  its 
possessors  morally  free.  Of  course  it  could  not.  Men  have 
painfully  to  work  out  their  moral  freedom  in  their  lives.  They 
must  make  themselves  free  in  their  habitual  deeds,  desires, 
feelings,  and  thoughts.  And  many  an  unlettered  man,  in- 
capable of  theories,  has  in  this  way  wrought  out,  in  sweat  of 
soul,  a  substantial  freedom  even  under  iron  limitations  which 
he  could  neither  alter  nor  understand.1  Need  it  be  said  that 
in  default  of  this  'actual  achievement  of  the  moral  life,  a 
knowledge  of  all  the  theories  of  Obligation  which  philosophy 
contains  would  profit  nothing? 

But  be  this  practical  moral  achievement  never  so  splendid, 
theory  has  something  to  superadd.  It  remains 

The  reason-          P  ,       ,        .  ,       -  . 

able  service  for  it  to  speak  the  last  word  of  emancipation, 
that  is  perfect  not  the  "emancipation,"  spurious  and  born  of 
caprice,  which  shakes  allegiance  to  our  habitual 
duties,  but  that  far  other  emancipation  that  rivets  allegiance 
the  closer  by  making  it  open-eyed,  intelligent,  reasonable.  For 

i  Cf.  p.  120. 


Practical  Value  of  a  Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal    237 

without  this  there  can  be  no  perfect  freedom  for  a  rational 
being. 

Nor  need  we  stop  here.     It  is  not  too  much  to  claim  that 
a  theory  of  the  ideal  can,  in  addition,  render 

4.   A  theory 

high  service  by  quickening  the  moral  life.     One   of  the  ideal 
may  venture  to  suggest  that  philosophers  are 


here  apt  to   claim   too   little.     Realising   truly  quicken  the 

.      .          .      .  r          ,  .,  ,  .  moral  life. 

enough  that  it  is  not  for  philosophy  to  impart 
life  but  to  understand  the  life  otherwise  imparted,  not  to  make 
ideals  but  to  explain  them,  they  come  to  think  that  theory,  as 
Aristotle  said,  "moves  nothing."  "It  is  not  to  be  supposed," 
says  T.  H.  Green,  "  that  anyone,  for  being  a  theoretic  Utili- 
tarian, has  been  a  better  man."  J  It  is  hard  to  accept  this, 
when  one  studies  the  lives  of  the  great  Utilitarians,  Bentham 
the  founder,  James  Mill  the  propagandist,  John  Mill  the 
apostle.  These  men  might  have  lived  for  the  public  good  as 
they  did,  without  their  philosophy.  It  is  impossible  to  say. 
Yet  one  is  constrained  to  think,  if  there  be  truth  in  biography, 
that  as  the  idea  of  Human  Happiness  rose  before  their  eyes, 
in  ever-widening  breadth,  in  ever-growing  detail,  it  kindled  a 
zeal  for  Public  Good  which  would  not  otherwise  in  measure  so 
abounding  have  entered  into  their  lives.  Similarly  with  Green 
himself.  No  reader  of  his  "Prolegomena  to  Ethics"  can  fail 
to  feel  the  repressed  fervour  of  its  pages,  and  those  who  knew 
the  man  can  never  forget  the  unobtrusive  passion  for  righteous- 
ness that  shone  through  a  character  which  shrank  from  easy 
expression  of  itself.  It  was  ethical  temperament,  habitual 
moral  aspiration,  religious  fervour.  Doubtless.  But  was  it 
not  also,  in  part,  the  fruit  of  a  life-long,  determined,  reasoning 
reflexion  upon  the  moral  possibilities  and  destiny  of  man  ? 

For  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  he  who  goes  in  search 
of  a  theory  of  his  moral  ideal,  travels  by  his  own  analytic  path 

1  Prolegomena,  Bk.  iv.  c.  iii.  331.  The  context  runs  "It  (the  Utili- 
tarian theory)  has  not  given  men  a  more  lively  sense  of  their  duty  to 
others  —  no  theory  can  do  that  —  &c," 


238     Practical  Value  of  a  Theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal 

into  a  world  of  august  and  enduring  objects.  Is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  if  the  man  who  has  spent  his  deepest  hours  of 
meditation  in  the  presence  of  Duty,  of  Public  Good,  and  of 
the  half-revealed  and  half-concealed  possibilities  of  the  indi- 
vidual life,  and  has  habitually  looked  upon  these  facts  with 
what  Plato  called  "  the  eye  of  the  soul,"  will  be  something 
more  than  the  cold-blooded  analyst  in  whom  the  world  too 
often  travesties  the  theorist?  For  in  his  own  way  he  will  have 
been  led  to  see  the  vision,  and  as  he  muses  in  his  silent  and 
solitary  hours,  the  fire  will  burn  within  him. 


PART  IV 

SELF-DEVELOPMENT  AND  SELF-CONTROL 

CHAPTER  I 

SELF-DEVELOPMENT 

IT  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  draw  a  sharp  line  be- 
tween Development  and  Self-development.     On     Difficulty  of 
the  one  hand,  all  development  is  self-develop-  defining  seif- 
ment  :  on  the  other,  what  we  call  self-develop-  devel°Pment- 
ment,  even  when  our  self  is  asserting  itself  to  its  utmost,  will 
be  found  to  involve  the  acceptance  of  many  conditions  of  life 
which   are   not   of  our    own   making,  and   sometimes  by  no 
means  of  our  own  approving. 

Development  is  self-development  in  more  senses  than  one. 
It  is  the  development   of  a   self.     Across   the 
coming  years,  a  far-off  future  self  sits  and  awaits 


us,  which,  when  the  years  have  gone  by,  we  shall  °£™ent  of  a 
claim  and  cling  to  as  our  own.     Whether  it  be  a 
predestinate   self,   we  need  not   here   discuss.     Enough  that, 
from  early  days  onwards,  we  have  a  sense  of  proprietorship  in 
it  which  deepens   as  life  goes  on;   and   that,  although  when 
realised  it  is  greatly  the   product   of  circumstances,  it  is  far 
from  wholly  so.     For   from   the   first   there  is 
development  by  a  self.     Even  the  seedling  and   ** 
the  nestling  have  a  kind  of  self.     They  are  not 
passive.    They  co-operate  with  Nature,  of  which  they  are  a 

239 


240  Self -development 

part.  For  there  is  that  in  them  —  that  principle  of  vegetative 
or  animal  life  —  which  environment  has  not  given,  and  cannot 
give.  So  that,  from  earliest  hours,  they  react  upon  stimulus 
with  an  inherent  energy  that  is  all  their  own.  Far  more  is  this 
the  case  with  man.  Man,  as  Spinoza  expresses  it,  has  "  the 
power  of  persisting  in  his  own  being."1  Hence,  if  in  one 
aspect,  his  history  is  a  record  of  adjustment  of  internal  to 
external  conditions,  this  is  but  one  aspect  of  two.  From  the 
first,  congenital  endowment  brings  him  to  confront  the  world 
with  something  of  an  independent  life  ;  and  this 
inner  life  becomes  an  ever  stronger  and  more 
more  as  life  stable  thing,  as  these  early  proclivities  are  nur- 
tured and  organised  into  settled  states  under 
the  various  encouragements  and  disciplines  of  education. 
Stronger  yet,  and  still  more  stable,  is  the  self  that  sees  the 
day  when  the  individual,  loosed  from  leading-strings,  lays  hold 
of  that  ideal  which  he  takes  to  be  his  moral  destiny,  and  sets 
himself,  with  the  help  of  his  own  practical  judgment,  to  enact 
it.  It  is,  of  course,  inevitable  that  environment  continues  to 
exercise  a  ceaseless,  masterful,  and  often  tyrannous  influence, 
till  at  last  it  brings  the  hour  of  physical  death.  Yet  it  is  not 
to  be  forgotten  that  from  even  early  days  the  immediate 
environment  is  in  part  what  the  individual,  by  his  own 
inherent  co-operating  energy,  has  made  it.  And  though,  in 
the  large  impersonal  ends  in  which  the  adult  life  is  caught  up 
by  society  and  swept  along,  the  self  may  seem  to  play  the  rdle 
of  passivity,  this  is  not,  at  least  it  need  not  really  be  so.  For 
the  longer  a  man  lives,  the  more  unmistakably  does  he  realise 
that  all  he  thinks,  says,  and  does,  even  in  his  most  social  and 
self-sacrificing  hours  and  aims,  is  the  manifestation  to  the 
world,  half-helped,  half-hindered,  of  that  inward  life  he  knows 
and  feels  to  be  his  own.  Has  not  Leibnitz  called  man 
"  monad  "  —  a  "  monad  "  who,  though  he  may  reflect  in  thought 

1  Ethics,  Part  in.  Prop.  vi.     "  Each  individual  thing,  so  far  as  in  it 
lies,  endeavours  to  persist  in  its  own  being." 


Self  -development  241 

the  wide  world  of  experience,  is  yet  in  the  centre  of  his  being 
isolated  from  even  his  most  familiar  companions. 

"  Points  have  we  all  within  our  souls 
Where  all  stand  single," 

says  Wordsworth.1  And  the  lines  never  come  home  more 
irresistibly  than  when  this  "Self"  that  is  the  meeting-  place  of 
all  our  interests,  the  seeming  starting-point  of  all  our  incentives 
and  projects,  has  been  brought  to  full  consciousness  of  its  own 
development  by  long,  varied,  and  reflective  contact  with  Nature 
and  Life. 

Development  both  of  a  self  and  by  a  self  may  thus  be  said 
to  be  proceeding  throughout  the  whole  course  of 

°,       ,  _T  Self-develop- 

moral  growth  and  education.     Yet  we  may  fitly   ment  may, 


speak  of  Self-development  in  a  narrower,  more 

definite,  yet  not  less  profitable  meaning.     For  narrower 

we    may    truly    say    that    Self-development    is 

reached  only  when  the  individual  tries  to  regulate  his  life  by 

his  own  judgment,  and  in  the  light  of  a  moral  ideal  which  he 

has  consciously  made  his  own. 

This  implies  emancipation  in  more  senses  than  one.     He 
who  has  come  to  rely  upon  his  own  judgment 
has  seen  the  last  of  tutelage  ;  and  he  who  has      Tt  involv.es 

emancipation  ; 

adopted  an  ideal  claims  thereby  to  judge  by 
another  and  a  better  standard  than  that  of  the  world.     This  is 
at  once  his  glory  and  his  responsibility.     Yet  there  need  be  no 
revolt  against  society,  nor  any  revolution  in  the  tenor  of  his 
life.     Innovation  is  by  no  means  of  the  essence  . 

J  but  not 

of  self-development.     Voices  at  any  rate  will  not   necessarily 
be  wanting  to  counsel  him  against  rupture  with 
the  traditions  of  his  past.     There  will  be  voices  of  the  men  of 
use  and  wont  to  tell  him  that  the  world's  ways  are  the  world's 
wisdom  ;  voices  of  religious  teachers  to  declare  that  the  Author 
of  man's  being  has  providentially  assigned  to  him  the  part  he 
1  Prelude,  Bk.  in. 


242  Self-development 

has  to  play  in  the  order  of  existence  ; *  voices  too,  it  may  be> 
of  philosophers  to  point  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  duties  of  our 
station  as  the  one  solution  of  our  ethical  problems.2  Few  are 
likely  to  deny  that  such  considerations  have  grounds  in  reason  ; 
and  in  proportion  as  they  prevail,  the  individual  will  be  content 
to  assert  himself  by  accepting,  deliberately  and  of  free  choice, 
many  a  duty  imposed  upon  him  in  his  past  life  by  society, 
without  his  having  been  at  all  consulted  in  the  matter. 

Yet  even  then,  self-development  will  imply  something  of  a 

transformation.     For    on    the    advent    of   free 

Yet  self-  choice  regulated  by  an  ideal,  the  most  familiar 

development  .  ' 

gives  a  new  of  duties  will  wear  a  changed  aspect.  It  will 
;„?£*. t0°ld  lose  its  isolation,  and  come  to  be  habitually 

viewed  as  a  clause  in  a  context,  a  part  of  a  plan, 
an  element  in  a  whole,  a  path  to  an  end.  Results  will  follow. 
Each  duty  may  assume  a  greater,  or  a  less  importance  than  it 
had  before.  But  never  again  will  it  wear  the  aspect  it  had 
when  it  was  but  an  isolated  obligation  enforced  by  authority  or 
commended  by  example.  And  as  moral  growth  goes  on,  every 
duty  will  thus  in  turn  be  taken  up  into  that  moral  ideal  with 
which  the  self  has  thrown  in  its  lot,  and  estimated  henceforth 
by  its  bearing  on  the  moral  End. 3 

Yet    Self-development   is   far    from   resting  here.     By   a 

fortunate  paradox,  it  is  just  when  a  man  makes 
deveiopes,  the  his  ideal  his  own  that  he  finds  it  more  than  ever 
moral  ideal  be-  beyoncl  his  grasp.  For  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 

comes  more  J  °       •*•  L  f 

than  ever  un-        that,  whilst  he  is  advancing  in  moral  growth,  the 
ideal  that  has  taken  possession  of  him  is  not 

1  e.g.  Burke,  Works,  m.  p.  79.    "  I  may  assume  that  the  Awful  Author 
of  our  being  is  the  author  of  our  place  in  the  order  of  existence;   and  that, 
having  disposed  and  marshalled  us  by  a  divine  tactic,  not  according  to  our 
will,  but  according  to  His,  He  has  in  and  by  that  disposition,  virtually 
subjected  us  to  act  the  part  which  belongs  to  the  place  assigned  us." 

2  Cf.  F.  H.  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies,  Essay  v.     "  My  station  and  its 
duties."     "  The  belief  in  this  real  moral  organism  (i.e.  the  community)  is 
the  one  solution  of  ethical  problems,"  p.  169. 

8  Cf.  p.  230. 


Self -development  243 

advancing  likewise.  Far  otherwise.  As  reason  developes,  the 
idea  of  Moral  Law  will  rise  before  his  mind  as  a  far  greater 
and  more  imperative  fact  than  he  had  heretofore  imagined. 
From  an  expanding  knowledge  of  moral  aspiration,  as  it  is  writ 
large  in  the  upward  struggle  of  men  and  institutions,  he  will 
return  with  the  conviction  that  the  loftiest  ideal  is  eloquent  by 
virtue  of  its  aspirations  even  more  than  because  of  anything  it 
has  reduced  to  definition  or  formula.  Small  wonder  then  if 
the  growth  of  the  ideal  may  far  outrun  the  growth  of  the  moral 
life  that,  with  all  its  striving,  can  only  follow  afar  off.  For  it  is 
not  the  ideals  of  earlier  years  that  are  the  most  unattainable. 
"The  petty  done,  the  undone  vast"  is  not  the  thought  of  the 
youth ;  but  of  those  who,  having  done  the  most,  yet  count 
themselves  unprofitable  servants,  because  it  is  to  them  only 
that  the  experience,  the  knowledge,  and  the  reflexion  of 
maturer  years  have  opened  up  the  far  vistas  of  moral 
possibility. 

Hence  when  we  say  that  the  ideals  of  age  are  sober  in 
comparison  with  those  of  the  morning  of  life,  we 
must  never  suppose  ourselves  to  be  confessing  The  ideals  of 
that  they  are  lower.  Their  sobriety  lies  in  the  soberer  and 
recognition  that  their  enactment  must  be  long 
and  gradual,  in  the  clearer  perception  of  their 
relation  to  fact,  in  the  consciousness  of  how  hard  a  task  it  is  to 
realise  them  even  in  part,  and  in  the  added  emphasis  they  lay 
upon  qualities — patience,  toleration,  self-suppression,  humility, 
sound  judgment  —  which  are  too  prosaic  for  the  romantic 
visions  of  youth.  And  indeed  it  would  augur  ill  for  the  Moral 
Law  that  is  over  all,  did  not  the  ideals  of  those  who  have  lived 
in  its  presence  through  a  long  life  far  transcend  the  first 
dreams  of  inexperienced  enthusiasm.  It  is  a  fact  worth 
dwelling  on.  For  in  it  lies  the  hope  of  a  self- development  to 
which  we  may  not  set  limits.  "This  is  what  I  am  doing;" 
"This  is  what  I  ought  to  be  doing  "  —  in  this  contrast  lies  the 
nerve  of  moral  progress.  It  is  a  contrast  fruitful  of  good 


244  Self-development 

works :   it  is   more   fruitful   still   of  aspiration  which  works, 
however  good,  for  ever  fail  to  satisfy. 

Such    aspiration    may   find    fulfilment   in   either    of    two 
directions. 

Aspiration  jn  most  jf-  wfi\  take  tne  form  Qf  (as  ^g  phrase 

after  the  ideal 

may  find  fui-        goes)  leaving  the  world  better  than  they  found 

iL  The  Self  these  seek  to  dcvelope  will  be 
emphatically  the  social  self,  the  self,  in  other 
words,  that  has  thrown  in  its  lot  with  some  definite  small  or 
large  circle  of  social  aims  and  interests ;  and  their  supreme 
instrument  will  be  that  sound  judgment  which  we  have  seen  to 
be  the  crowning  virtue  of  the  practical  man.  Such,  when  at 
their  best,  are  the  types  who  find  their  lives  in  losing  them, 
the  men  or  women  whom  we  call,  not  without  something 
of  a  contradiction,  "unselfish,"  so  instinct  has  their  self 
become  with  the  life  of  sacrifice.  It  is  a  consolation  to 
reflect  that,  by  every  unselfish  enterprise,  they  give  an  added 
worth  to  the  self  they  sacrifice  so  ungrudgingly.1  And 
such  are  the  men  of  the  world,  in  the  truest  sense  of  that 
phrase,  —  the  men  of  action  who  are  unrestingly  developing 
themselves,  though,  in  preoccupation  with  projects  and 
causes,  they  hardly  pause  to  reflect  that  they  have  a  self  to 
develope. 

Yet  to  this  line  of  moral  advance  there  are,  in  one  aspect, 
very  real  limits.     For  when  society  is  already 
deepening  of         highly  developed  and  organised,  there  is   less 
*herimoral  scope  for  the  individual   to   strike  out  in  un- 

trodden paths.  The  ways  of  action  for  the  vast 
majority  lie  along  the  common  beaten  highway.  And,  as 
result,  outward  performance  may  come  but  poorly  to  reflect 
the  differences  in  character  between  man  and  man.  It  would 
not  be  difficult  to  find  next-door  neighbours,  whose  lives  are  to 

1  Cf.  Aristotle's  remark  that  even  in  making  a  sacrifice  for  a  friend  a 
man  assigns  the  greater  good  to  himself.     Ethics,  Bk.  ix.  viii.  9-11. 


Self-development  245 

a  first  glance  much  upon  a  par,  and  who  are  yet  poles  asunder 
in  real  moral  achievement. 

This  is  because  self-development  may  find  another  path,  in 
the  cultivation  of  that  inward  spirit,  that  purity  and  elevation 
of  motive,  that  sincerity  of  endeavour,  which  we  find  at  their 
best  in  the  life  of  the  saint.  The  supreme  instrument  here 
will  be,  not  so  much  practical  wisdom  as  habitual  self- 
examination  and  self-judgment. 

There  are  moralists  with  a  strong  bias  for  action  who  look 
askance  at  this.     Fearful   that  it   may  run   to 
ultra-conscientiousness  and  morbidity,  they  ex-      Dangers  of 

premature 

hort  the  world  —  often  needlessly  enough  —  to   seif-examina- 


turn  their  minds  from  all  self-scrutiny,  and  to 
fix  it  with  the  maximum  of  self-forgetfulness 
upon  the  thing  they  can  work  at.1  They  have  reason.  There 
is  a  premature  conscientiousness  that  is  peculiarly  blighting. 
It  is  fostered  by  "  melancholic  "  temperament,  by  sentimental 
example,  by  introspective  fiction,  by  certain  modes  of  religious 
up-bringing  with  their  anxieties  about  "the  soul."  However 
fostered,  it  gives  a  wrong  centre  to  life  by  turning  the  eyes 
inwards,  just  at  that  age  when,  in  the  interests  of  self- 
development,  it  is  above  all  things  important  that  there  should 
be  a  healthy  outward  outlook,  and  a  pursuit  of  outward 
interests  and  ends  all  but  heedless  in  its  eagerness.  This  is 
the  kind  of  Self-knowledge  that  Carlyle  seems  to 

,  ,         ,       i  Carlyle's 

have  in  view,  when  he  beseeches  us  not  to  try  to  diatribes 
know  ourselves.     In  one  sense,  we  may  echo  his   aeainst  self- 

knowledge. 

warnings.     For  the  fugitive  and  cloistered  self 
that  begins  life  by  self-consciously  hanging  back  from  contact 
with  experience  will  not  be  worth  the  knowing.    Its  conscience 
is  scrupulous  only  because  its  instincts  and  resolves  are  weak. 

But  not  all  self-examination  is  thus  barren.     Grant  that  it 
is  the  law  of  development  that  men  first  act  and  then  reflect 

1  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus,  Bk.  II.  c.  vii.  159  (Lib.  Ed.).     Cf.  passim 
the  Essay  on  Characteristics. 


246  Self -development 

Yet  this  does  not  make  reflexion  one  whit  the  less  human 
and  imperative.  Fortunately  so.  It  will  hardly 
De  disputed  that  consciousness  of  our  faults  is 

self-judgment       the  first  step  towards  correcting  them,  and  with- 

are  necessary.  ...  , 

out  self- examination  how  can  we  escape  what 
Carlyle  himself  declares  to  be  the  worst  fault  of  all,  the  being 
conscious  of  none  ?  It  may  not  seem  so  necessary  for  us  to 
be  conscious  of  our  virtues.  And  indeed  the  same  great 
prophet  of  Unconsciousness,  true  to  his  conviction  that 
goodness  is  a  secret  to  itself,  would  have  it  that  of  the  right 
we  are  never,  and  ought  never  to  be  conscious.1  We  need  not 
pause  to  ask  by  what  means  the  eye  of  consciousness,  so  keen 
for  vices,  is  to  be  kept  blind  to  virtues.  The  more  important 
point  is  that  this  whole  Carlylian  doctrine  goes  upon  an 
inadequate  idea  of  what  self-examination  really  is.  It  seems 
to  limit  it  to  a  barren  introspective  fingering  of  motives.  But 
the  self-examination  of  the  saint  is  a  different  thing  from  this. 
It  turns  its  merciless  search-light  upon  motives  only  that  it 
t  .  .  ,  may  compare  the  actual  attainment  of  the  soul 

And  fruitful 

of  moral  with  the  moral  ideal,  so  that  thereby  it  may 

effort.  gjr(j  -tsej£  to  fl.^  resolves  and  renewed  efforts. 

There  is  a  misreading  here  of  saintly  and  conscientious  lives 
which  has  to  be  avoided.  Their  confessions  of  shortcoming 
are  construed  as  confessions  of  baseness,  when  they  signify  no 
more  than  that  their  failings  blacken  in  their  own  eyes  only 
because  they  see  them  in  relief  against  the  exceptional  eleva- 
tion and  imperativeness  of  their  ideal. 

opportunity  Nor  is  the  self-development  that  comes  of 

for  self-  self-examination  and  self-judgment  at  all  incon- 

development 

is  not  to  be  sistent  with   the   law   that   it   is  only  through 


contact  with  experience  that  the  character  is 
experience.          enriched  and  developed.    Contact  with  life  there 

1  Thus  he  quotes  with  approval  the  dictum :  "  Of  the  Wrong  we  are 
always  conscious,  of  the  Right  never." 


Self -development  247 

must  be.     The  recluse  who  shuts  him  from  his  kind  will  be 
only  too  apt  to  lose  his  life  in  the  effort  to  monopolise  it. 

"  Then  he  will  sigh 

Inly  disturbed  to  think  that  others  feel 
What  he  must  never  feel.     And  so,  lost  soul, 
On  visionary  views  will  fancy  feed." 

And  this  warning,  it  is  well  to  remember,  comes  from  the  self- 
sufficing  solitary  Wordsworth.1     But  it  is  not  necessary  that 
there  should  be  contact  with  the  world  upon  any  large  scale  to 
furnish  opportunity  enough.     It  is  sometimes  said,   even   in 
face   of  all   the   glaring  inequalities   of  fortune,   that   on  an 
unprejudiced   and    discriminating    view,   happiness    is    more 
equally    diffused    throughout    all    stations    in    Society    than 
economists   or  politicians   would   have    us    suppose.     If   we 
estimate  happiness  by  moral  character  we  need  not  doubt  it. 
The  circumscribed  lot  of  an  uneventful  life  is  at  any  rate  no 
barrier.     For  sagacity  of  judgment,  consistency 
of  purpose,  purity  of  intention,  depth  and  sin-  possibilities 
cerity  of  feeling,  persistence  of  aspiration,  all,  in  °.f  common 
short,  that  gives  action  moral  as  distinguished 
from  economic  or  political  value,  may  be  there  in  measure  as 
full  as  in  deeds  that  make  the  world  wonder.     This  to  be  sure 
is  something  of  a  commonplace.     But  it  is  not  the  less  sig- 
nificant on  that  account.     For  it  would  never  have  for  so  long 
held  its  ground  as  a  commonplace  had  it  not  been  a  common 
experience. 

1  The  whole  of  the  elegiac  lines  are  in  point.    Cf.  Works,  vol.  I.  p.  44 
(Moxon). 


248  Self-control 

CHAPTER  II 

SELF-CONTROL 

ALL  development,  as  we  have   already  seen,  involves  re- 

pression.    And  the  same  principle  holds  when 

sjfhcontroif01      development  has  become  self-  development,  and 


best  in  thC  when  the  represser  and  the  repressed  are  one. 

The  most  careful  early  education  will  not 
obviate  this.  For  the  best  it  can  do  is  to  fit  its  product  for 
that  seemingly  never-ending  conflict  in  which  the  soul  is 
divided  against  itself.  It  is  not  simply  that  mankind,  by  their 
own  confession,  do  what  they  ought  not  to  do.  Their  malady 
lies  deeper.  It  lies  in  the  vitiation  of  their  will.  Not  a  day, 
hardly  an  hour,  but  they  are  visited  by  feelings,  desires,  ideas, 
of  which  they  would  thankfully  be  rid.  The  best  are  not 
secure  against  these  unwelcome  guests.  And  even  the  saint, 
if  there  be  truth  in  his  own  confessions,  is  to  the  end  of  his 
days  tormented  and  humiliated  by  their  obstinate  resurrection. 
Yet  it  is  not  the  apparition  of  such  things  in  consciousness 

that  need  be  felt  as  a  disgrace.  They  come 
problem  :  how  unbidden  and  unwelcome.  They  intrude  even 
evif^eeifngs  upon  our  best  moments  with  an  abruptness  that 
desires,  and'  suggests  the  ambush  of  an  evil  spirit.  It  is  their 

presence  without  the  resolute  effort  to  get  rid  of 
them.  And  the  question  that  profoundly  concerns  us  is, 
How? 

A  well-known  and  simple  specific  is  to  inhibit  their  ex- 

pression in  act.     Our  feelings  and  desires,  it  is 

truty  said,  feed  upon  their  own  expression.     It 


expression  is        js  so  ^jj  fae  savaere  who  brandishes  his  club  to 

reasonable. 

bring  himself  to  slaughter  pitch  :  it  is  so  with 
the  devotee  who  seeks  in  ritual  the  flame  that  fans  his  religious 
emotions.  Hence  the  policy  of  weakening  the  passion  by 


Self-control  249 

denying  it  expression.  Do  we  not  know  that  the  storm  of 
feeling  can  be  checked,  if  only  we  can  prevent  the  first  word 
from  being  spoken,  the  first  gesture  from  being  made.  And  is 
it  not  matter  of  common  observation  that  persons  who  begin 
by  being  Stoics  in  demeanour  end  by  becoming  Stoics  in 
reality  ? 

This  policy  is  however  open  to  serious  qualifications.     One 
is  the  risk  that  it  will  be  interpreted  too  super- 
ficially.    When    a    man    almost    chokes    with   may  be^nter- 
suppressed  fury,  or  when  his  heart  stands  still  pretedtoo 

J'  .  superficially: 

with   cold   fear,   he   must   not    natter    himself; 
however  impassive  his  demeanour,  that  he  is  really  inhibiting 
the  expression  of  his  passion.     Little  progress  will  be  made  if 
the  suppression  of  overt  movement  leaves  these  unexpressed 
expressions  to  riot  unchecked. 

An    even    more    serious    qualification   is    that    all    strong 
passion  appears  to  find  assuagement  actually  in         Feelin 
and  through  expression.     "  She  must  weep  or  and  passion 
she  will  die."     Nor  need  we  go  far  afield  to  find  Cement 
the  trite  "  Have  it  out  and  be  done  with  it,"  through 
addressed  as  a  general  exhortation  to  all  nursers 
of  wrath  or  brooders  upon  wrongs.     There   is   reason   here. 
Assuagement  of  passion  through  expression  rests  on  the  fact 
that  all  our  feelings  and  desires  appear  to  run  down  and  come 
to  an  end  when  their  work  is  done.     They  may  seem  to  be 
feeding  on  their  own  expression.     They  actually  do  so  while 
they  last.     But  this  cannot  go  on  for  ever.     When  they  have 
freely  found   their  natural  vent,  they  flag  and  lie  down,  and 
their  victim  feels  again  a  free  man. 

So  true  is  this  that  we  might  accept  this  plan  of  escape 
from  fury  by  being   openly  furious,  and   from      Reasons  for 
malice  by  being  frankly  malicious,  were  it  not  preferring  the 
for  sundry  drawbacks  of  a  quite  fatal  force.     All  fnhibuion  to 
passion  obeys  the  law  of  habit.     Timely  utter-  Jj£t  of  giving 
ance  gives  it  relief.     True  —  and  likewise  pre- 


250  Self-control 

disposes  it  to  seek  similar  relief  when  the  passion  recurs. 
These  explosive  types  go  off  to  ever  lighter  triggers.  Add  to 
this  that  Feeling  and  Desire  become  memorable  through 
expression.  Denied  expression,  they  tend  sooner  or  later  — 
emotions  especially  —  to  pass  :  granted  expression,  they  are 
thereby  written,  be  it  in  words  or  otherwise,  on  a  record  that 
we  cannot  blot. 

"  The  moving  finger  writes,  and  having  writ, 
Moves  on.     Nor  all  your  piety  nor  wit 
Will  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line, 
Nor  all  your  tears  wash  out  a  word  of  it."1 

For  it  is  the  instinct  of  all  strong  feelings,  joyful  or  sorrowful, 
pleasurable  or  painful,  to  express  themselves  in  ways  that 
forbid  forgetting,  and  all  overt  expression  works  in  this 
direction.  So  that  though  a  passion  may  pass,  it  has  its  own 
memorable  recorded  utterance  to  feed  upon  as  often  as  it 
revives.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  this  giving  of  the  passions 
vent  assumes  an  ugly  character,  when  we  reflect  that  it  usually 
means  venting  them  upon  our  neighbours.  From  this  aspect, 
there  is  no  plan  possible  but  that  of  consuming  our  own 
smoke.  To  shoot  the  poisoned  arrow,  and  call  it  peace 
because  we  have  discharged  our  last  shaft,  is  not  morality. 
This  alone  is  enough  to  dip  the  balance  in  favour  of  the 
policy  of  inhibition. 

And  yet  this  policy  is  all  too  simple.     Inhibition  involves 

control  of  those  neural  and  muscular  movements 

TO  inhibit          which  have  to  be  arrested.     And  it  is  safe  to 

the  expression 

of  the  assume  —  whatever    be    the    truth    about    the 

passions,  we        obscure  relation  between  psychical  states  and 

must  secure  »    ' 

the  psychical  bodily  movements  —  that  no  man  will  succeed 
Inhibition8  °  ni  performing  effective  inhibitive  acts,  who  can- 
not induce  the  presence  of  inhibitive  feelings, 
desires,  and  ideas.  Hence  we  must  push  the  question  further 
back.  Granting  the  efficacy  of  denying  to  these  hostile  and 

lOmar  Khayyam,  LXXI. 


Self-control  251 

hateful  states  their  expression,  we  must  ask  how  we  can 
command  the  presence  in  the  soul  of  the  required  inhibiting 
antecedents. 

We  need  not  here  raise  the  question  whether,  when  a  good 
passion  ousts  a  bad,  or  contrariwise,  passion  acts  directly  upon 
passion  (the  drama  in  that  case  being  psychical),  or  whether 
this  interaction  of  the  passions  is  in  all  cases,  as  in  a  psycho- 
physical  being  like  man  we  might  expect,  mediated  by  bodily 
movements.  The  point  of  practical  importance  is  that,  for  the 
performance  of  the  work  of  inhibition,  the  presence  of  a 
counter  passion  is  essential.  If  this  be  granted,  we  may  pass 
at  once  to  the  assertion  that  it  is  of  utmost  moment  that  this 
counter  passion  should  be  more  than  merely 
negative,  more,  that  is  to  say,  than  the  mere  enougiTto 
desire,  however  intense,  to  suppress.  For  it  is  hate  our 

.  -  vices. 

poor  strategy  to  wage  against   evil  feelings  or 

propulsions  a  war  of  mere  repression.     We  have  seen  that  this 

is   so  in  educational  control  of  others.1    It  is  not  less  so  in 

control  of  ourselves.     If  we  would  really  oust  our  evil  pro- 

clivities,   we    must    cultivate    others    that   are 

positively  good.     It  is  not  enough  to  hate  our 

failings  or  our  vices  with  a  perfect  hatred.     We   ousted  by  g°°d 

ones. 

must  love  something  else.     In  other  words,  we 
must  contrive  to  open  mind  and  heart  to  tenants  in  whose 
presence  unwelcome  intruders,  unable  to  find  a  home,  will 
torment  us  only  for  a  season  and  at  last  take  their  departure. 

We  may  however  aim  at  securing  this  result  in  various 
ways.     One  way  is  to  practise  a  moral  hygiene  2 
by  guiding  our  lives  into  places  of  moral  health,  repressing 
There    are    social   circles    in   which    malicious  pa^ns*"*1 
feelings    wither,    energetic    pursuits    in    which      "Morai^ 
contact  with   a  larger  life  swamps  petty  irri-      yglCE 


2Cf.  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  333.    "There  is  a  mental 
just  as  much  as  a  bodily  hygiene." 


252  Self -control 

labilities,  natural  scenes  of  peace  where  we  can  no  longer 
anchor  by  one  gloomy  or  sordid  thought.  And  Browning  has 
told  us  how  even  vice  and  crime  can  be  rebuked  by  the  mere 
sight  of  innocence.1 

The  effectiveness  of  this  resource  rests  upon  a  characteristic 

of  our  feelings  and  desires  which  is  educationally 

ness8  CffeCtiVe"      of  the  first  importance.     They  do  not  always 

lord  it  over  us  with  equal  mastery.     They  wax 

and  wane.     Our  policy  therefore  is  clear.     It  is  "  to  utilise  the 

intervals  between  strong  emotions."  2     If  in  the  flood-tide  hour 

we  can  make  little  way,  we  can  strive  to  take  these  hostile 

passions  at  the  ebb,  and  then  let  "  moral  hygiene  "  do  its  work. 

Our  success  will  manifestly  depend  on  our  past.     If  we 

have  habitually  lived  in  these  places  of  moral  health,  they  will 

not  fail  us  when  we  betake  ourselves  thither  in  the  hour  of  our 

need,  and  our  evil  humours  or  evil  promptings,  taken  unawares, 

will  depart  at  least  for  a  season.    It  is  here  that  a  contracted 

The  nemesis      development  finds  its  nemesis.     By  the  narrow- 

of  a  contracted      ness  of  its  outlook  and  its  interests,  it  has  done 

snt'        something  worse   than  stunt   its   development. 

It  has  shut  itself  out  from  the  curative  influences  of  nature  and 

life.     How  different  when  a  generous  upbringing  has  filled  our 

lives  with  healthy  interests.     For  then  it  is  little  that  is  exacted 

of  us.     A  favourite  haunt,  a  tried  friend,  a  congenial  business, 

a  well- loved  book,  perhaps  even  a  chosen  pastime  —  they  are 

enough.     A  wise  passiveness  will  do  the  rest. 

There  is  however,  and  fortunately,  a  more  strenuous  way 
than  this.     We  have  seen  that  it  is  of  the  very 
de-         nature  of  man  that  in  him  feeling  and  desire  are 
pend  upon  the       not  blind,  but  on  the  contrary  consciously  knit 
objectes°f  their      to  their  objects  and  ends.3    This  indeed  is  the 
very  secret  of  the  awful,  or  ridiculous,  tyranny  of 

1  Cf.  Pippa  Passes. 

*  Cf.  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  334. 

»Seep.3i. 


Self-control  253 

the  passions  over  us.  They  enslave  us  because  their  vividly- 
imaged  objects  usurp  our  minds.  This  is  so  with  ambition, 
love,  hatred,  jealousy,  fear,  hope,  despair,  with  all  the  passions. 
And  not  seldom  the  passion  is  masterful  just  in  proportion  as 
its  object  is  illusory.  Here  is  a  man  who  is  mastered  by  the 
evil  spirit  of  revenge  till  his  most  patient  counsellors  cease  in 
despair  to  speak  to  him.  And  why?  Because  the  image  of 
his  enemy,  of  his  fancied  wrong,  of  his  longed-for  vengeance, 
so  fills  his  imagination  that  he  can  think  and  dream  of  nothing 
else.  Life,  the  apocalypse  of  a  God,  has  shrunk  to  a  poor 
melodramatic  theatre  for  petty  personal  revenge.  Here  is 
another  over-mastered  by  despondency.  It  is  because  some 
picture  of  misfortune  to  be  encountered  in  some  fancied 
future  has  so  possessed  his  mind  that  it  has  already  begun  to 
produce  the  very  suffering  from  which,  spectre-ridden,  he,  in 
anticipation,  shrinks.  It  is  needless  to  multiply  illustration. 
There  is  not  a  passion  in  the  whole  fearful  and  pitiful  list  that 
does  not  thus  feed  upon  its  object.  Nor  can  man,  so  long  as 
he  claims  the  dangerous  prerogative  to  think,  and  especially  to 
think  in  images,  escape  this  threatened  bondage.  But  there  is 
a  remedy.  It  is  thrice  fortunate  that  our  passions 
thus  feed  upon  their  objects.  For  then  we  can  ™ecf"get 

J  .  rid  of  the 

attack  them  through  their  objects ;  or,  in  other  passion  by 
words,  get  rid  of  the  passion  by  deposing   its  object."6  "* 
object  from  its  usurped  primacy.     This  however 
is  not  to  be  done  —  let   us  never  so   delude   ourselves  —  by 
simply  thinking  the  object  away.     "  Try  not  to  think  of  it "  is 
the  familiar  well-meant   advice  of  the  miserable   counsellors, 
who   are   fruitful   of   exhortation   and   barren    of    expedient. 
Would  they  but  vouchsafe  to  tell  us  how  ! 

It  is  here  that  Spinoza  has  offered   to  the  passion-tossed 
and  passion-driven  world  a  well-known  emanci- 

•*•  Spinoza  s 

pation.     Convinced,   like   the   Stoics,  that   the   way  of  eman- 

despotism  of  the  passions  is  due  to  the  fraudu-   clPatlon> 

lent  pre-eminence  with  which   the   imagination   invests   their 


254  Self-control 

objects,  he  bids  us  set  to  work  to  dispel  this  enslaving  illusion 
by  bringing  ourselves  to  know  what  the  object  of  the  passion 
really  is,  when  seen  in  the  dispassionate  light  of  the  under- 
standing. "  A  passion,"  so  runs  his  memorable 
that  comes6  aphorism,  "  ceases  to  be  a  passion  as  soon  as  we 


Stan"?"" 

And  to  do  justice  to  the  profound  insight  of  the 
remark,  we  need  but  think  of  any  passion,  vengeance  or  love 
or  ambition,  and  then  ask  two  questions  about  it.  What  was 
it  in  the  stormy  hour  when  it  so  possessed  us  that  it  was  the 
one  thing  worth  living  for,  the  one  thing  that  blotted  out  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  ?  What  is  it  now  —  now  that  the  rolling 
years,  that  bring  the  wiser  mind,  have  opened  our  eyes  to  the 
real  finitude,  possibly  the  insignificance,  of  the  object  which 
loomed  so  large,  so  extravagantly  large  in  a  world  where  there 
is  so  much  else  to  live  for?  It  is  only  needful  to  face  these 
two  questions  in  order  to  see  how  a  strenuous  effort  to  under- 
stand the  object  of  a  passion,  and  in  understanding  it  to 
relegate  it  to  its  true  significance  or  insignificance  in  the 
context  of  experience,  must  needs  vastly  change  it  from  what 
it  seemed  to  be  in  the  days  of  our  passionate  ignorance.  Nor 
is  it  doubtful  that  as  the  object  thus  changes,  as  it  shrinks  to 
its  real  proportions,  its  influence  upon  our  feelings  and  desires 
must  diminish  accordingly.  The  ultimate  result  will  be 
different  in  different  types.  It  may  be  the  resignation  of 
despair,  of  trust,  of  humour,  or  of  melancholy.2  But  in  any 
case  the  passion  will  be  subjugated.3 

This  however  is  rather  a  counsel  for  philosophers,  or  at 
any  rate  for  the  minority  who  can  unite  the  resolution  and 
the  faculty  to  think  over  their  experiences  with  the  deter- 

1  Spinoza's  Ethics,  Part  v.  Prop.  iii. 

2  Cf.  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  335. 

8  The  last  two  pages  (with  some  alterations)  have  been  taken  from  a 
paper  by  the  writer  in  The  International  Journal  of  Ethics  for  October 
1899. 


Self -control  255 

mination  to  understand  them.     For  the  most  of  us  the  more 
hopeful  plan  is  to  overcome  our  passions  by 

,  .    ,  .  r  For  the 

thinking  of  something  else.  majority,  the 

This  something  else  need  by  no  means  be  a  more  hopeful 

IT       .    ..  .  plan  is  to 

serious  thing.     For  it  happens  sometimes  that  overcome  a 
ideas  that  do   not  soar  above  trivialities  may  ^S^of 
nevertheless  have  sent  down  such  roots  into  a  something 
man's  life,  and  become  so  fruitful  of  suggestion, 
that  they  prove  more  effective  allies  than  more  imposing  and 
pretentious  resources.     Whence  it  comes  that  a  sport,  or  a 
pastime,  have  before  now  weaned  many  from  cares  and  sorrows 
which  seemed  proof  against  even  the  consolations  of  religion. 
Be  it  granted  that,  severely  construed,  this  is  a  proof  of  the 
frivolity  of  human  nature.     But  it  is  none  the 
less  an  illustration  of  the  expulsive  power  of  ideas.  guVae"tjj£ 
Let  but  any  idea  have  once  wrought  itself  into  ideas  in  ex- 
the   texture   of  our  lives:    its   effectiveness   is  gjjjjj* other 
secured.     A    man    may   be    discouraged    and 
embittered :  it  is  enough  to  suggest  the  hopeful  future  of  his 
boy  or  his  friend,  and  the  bitterness  vanishes :  or  he  may  be 
revengeful  and  vindictive,  till  he  is  brought  to  remember  that 
there  is  much  else  to  live  for  besides  the  projects  in  which  he 
has  been  thwarted  or  ill-used.     So  throughout.    The  serious 
idea,  like  the  frivolous  idea,  wins  the  day;  and  it  wins  it,  not 
so  to  say  upon  its  isolated  merits,  but  because  in  the  course 
of  our  past  lives  it  has  struck  strong  alliance  with  a  multitude  of 
associated  co-mates,  that  come  crowding  in,  upon  the  signal  of 
its  suggestion.    And  the  hope  is  that,  against  this  compact 
phalanx,  our  unwelcome  thoughts,  being  often  detached  and 
poor  in  alliances,  will  be  unable  long  to  hold  their  ground. 

There  are  here  however  vast  differences  between  man  and 
man.  In  some  all  life  may  have  sufficed  but  to  establish  one 
or  two  genuinely  suggestive  practical  ideas.  If  these  fail  them, 
they  are  undone.  There  are  others  so  ready  of  response  in  a 
hundred  ways,  that  when  disappointed  in  one  resource,  they 


256  Self-control 

turn  cheerfully  to  another,  so  that  we  can  hardly  imagine  them 

to  have  been  long  at  the  mercy  of  unwelcome  thoughts.     Yet 

even  with  these  there  is  often  a  difficulty  —  the 

Difficulty  of 

the  first  step,  difficulty  of  the  first  step.  For  the  healthiest  of 
deaun^with  natures  at  times  succumbs  to  the  dire  tyranny  of 
"the fixed  " the  fixed  idea."  A  wrong,  a  sorrow,  a  tempta- 

tion, effects  a  lodgment,  and  obstinately  refuses 
to  quit.  We  may  have  counter-resources,  and  we  may  know 
we  have.  But  they  seem  at  times  strangely  to  have  lost  their 
power,  and  to  have  become  impotent  to  displace  the  unwel- 
come intruder. 

Yet  there  are  definite  grounds  of  hope.  For,  even  when 
our  ideas  are  fixed,  they  are,  like  our  feelings  (though  not  to 
the  same  extent),  intermittent.  They  are  not  always  equally 
masterful.  Herein  lies  opportunity.  For  it  is  then  that  we 
must  bestir  ourselves,  and  cast  about  us  for 
value  of  well-  some  rival  idea,  which  we  know  to  be  knit  in 
timed  effort  of  close  and  comprehensive  alliance  to  a  powerful 

Attention.  L  _.  .       .          - 

system  of  ends  and  interests.  I  his  found,  we 
must  forthwith  turn  upon  it  the  utmost  strength  of  focalised 
Attention.  This  is  all  that  we  can  do.  Suggestion  and  asso- 
ciation must  do  the  rest.  And  they  will  do  enough  if, 
when  the  hated  haunting  idea  again  begins  to  reassert  its 
malign  power,  it  finds  itself  face  to  face  with  a  well-knit  system 
of  ideas,  feelings,  and  propulsions,  strong  enough  to  resist  it. 
It  is  thus  that  many  an  evil  purpose  has  been  routed,  many  a 
temptation  quenched,  many  a  brooding  sorrow  deposed  from 
its  usurped  ascendancy. 

Fortunately,  however,  our  difficulties  are  seldom  so  great 
as  this.     Slavery  to  the  fixed  idea  is  rare.     In 
most  nves  tne  practical  ideas  that  are  for  ever 
however,  there     sweeping    through    the    mind    are    many    and 
opportunities        changing.     The  good  and  evil,  the  trivial  and 
Attention °f          serious,  the  glad  and  the  sad,  pass  in  many- 
coloured,   never-ending   procession.     In   other 


Self-control  257 

words,  there  are  materials  for  selection.  So  that  some  idea 
caught  as  it  passes  may,  by  resolute  concentration  of  Attention 
upon  it,  grow  and  gather  following  strong  enough  to  make  a 
fight  for  the  citadel. 

There  are  fundamental  differences  among  psychologists  of 
the  Will  as  to  what  is  here  involved.     Some, 
impressed   by  the   tension,  struggle,  effort,  of  ^JJJ^*^ 
which    we    are     all    aware    when    trying,    for  what  effort  of 
example,  in  the  presence  of  a  powerful  temp-  ^"0^e°n 
tation,  to  maintain  a  counteracting  idea  in  the 
focus  of  consciousness,  are  ready  to  see  in  this  momentous 
concentration  of  Attention  the  presence  in  the  individual  of  a 
"spiritual  force."1     Others  insist,  and  surely  with  reason,  that 
effort   of  Attention,   however  intense,   must    needs   have   its 
explanation;    and   these  try  to   find   this   simply  in   the  felt 
tension  that  arises  when  rival   ideas  or  systems  of  ideas  are 
contending  for  mastery  of  the  soul.2    The  divergence  here  is 
plainly  of  educational  as  well  as  psychological  moment.     It 
would  indeed  be  something  if  we  could  believe  that  we  have 
at  our  disposal  a  modicum  of  "  spiritual  force,"  and  that  it 
rested  with  our  own  u  free  will  "  to  exercise  it,  in  those  crises 
when  we  are  hesitating  whether  the  idea  that  is   to  secure 
Attention  is  to  be  the  first  step  upwards  to  a  moral  victory  or 
the  first  step  downwards  to  moral  collapse.      It  is  however 
beyond  our  limits  to  discuss  so  complicated  a  question  here. 
Enough  that  there  is  general  agreement  that, 
whatever  be  the  mental  history  of  this  first  step,      whatever 

be  involved 

the  sequel  mainly  depends,  not  upon  what  we  can  in  effort  of 
do  in  the  moments  when  we  are  striving  after  Attenjion»  its 

0  sequel  depends 

self-control,  but  upon  what  has  been  done  for  us  upon  our 


by  the  long  course  of  our  education  from  our 
youth  up.  For  it  is  only  through  this  that  our 
ideas  can  establish  those  strong,  stable,  well-  organised  alliances 

1  Cf.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I.  xi.  453. 

2  Cf.  Bosanquet,  Psychology  of  the  Moral  Self,  p.  74. 


258  Self-control 

which  will  stand  us  in  good  stead,  when  the  perilous  hour 
comes  in  which  we  are  put  to  the  test,  either  by  a  conflict  of 
duties,  or  by  the  commoner  conflict  between  a  duty  and  a 
temptation. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  crises  that  meet  us,  when  we  have  risen 
to  that  stage  of  moral  enfranchisement  at  which  we  claim  to 
hold  our  destinies  in  our  own  hands,  become  the  occasions 
that  first  truly  reveal  what  has  been  done  for  us  in  days  long 
past,  when  as  yet  our  lives  were  controlled  by  other  hands. 
Nor  will  our  triumphs  of  Self-control,  if  we  be  fortunate 
enough  to  achieve  such,  be  the  less  welcome,  if  in  the  moment 
of  conscious  victory,  we  think  with  gratitude  of  the  men,  the 
institutions,  and  the  slowly-fashioned,  deeply-cherished  ideals, 
that  have  given  our  resolves  and  aspirations  that  habitual  well- 
compacted  coherency,  that  deep  root  in  our  moral  being,  in 
which  lies  the  open  secret  of  their  power. 


INDEX 


Advice  194 

Analogy  of  the  Arts  204,  212 

Ancestry  4-6 

Animals  30,  32,  99 

Aristotle   30,  35,   55,   60,   63,   66, 

203,  206,  218,  221,  244 
Arnold  (M.)  39 
Asceticism  45  et  seq.,  74 
Aspiration  243  et  seq. 
Atavism  5 

Attention  and  Will  256 
Authority  and  Casuistry  1 88,  201 

—    and  Ideals  144 

Bacon  114 

Baldwin  163 

Barnett  (P.  A.)  112 

Bentham  156,  2 10 

Body  and  Soul  74-79 

Bonar  (J.)  140 

Bosanquet  (B.)  257 

Bradley  (F.  H.)  242 

Bread-winning  117  et  seq. 

Brown  (Dr.  J.)  90 

Burke  106,  129,  145,  169,  196,  204, 

242 

Burns  28,  80,  85 
Butler  65 


Caird  (E.)  188,  201 
Capacities  22  et  seq. 

—  for  pleasure  and  pain  23 

—  and  Instincts  27 
Carlyle  II,  38,  129,  168,  245 
Casuistry  186-201 

—  and  Authority  200 

—  and  criminal  justice  199 

—  in  education  of  the  young  197 

—  in  politics  196 

—  and  probabilism  193 

—  and  individual  judgment  186 

—  and  scholasticism  188 
Churches  128  et  seq. 
Citizenship  124-128,  229 
Cleverness  218 

Cobden  48 

Codes  (moral)  182-186,  230 
Commandments  183  et  seq. 
Commonplaces,  value  of  180 
Competition  109 
Comradeship  no,  112 
Confidence,  winning  of  85 
Congenital  endowment  1-40 
Conscience  186,  210 
Control  of  passions  248  et  seq. 

—  of  ideas  252  et  seq. 
Country  life  96 


259 


260 


Index 


Darwin  29 
Day-dreaming  175 
Deliberation  37,  209-214,  217 
Democracy   and   Education    8-13, 

124 

Descent  of  Man  29 
Desire,  insatiability  of  38 

—  progressiveness  of  38 

—  and  Habit  54 

—  and  Instinct  37 

—  and  Pleasure  27-29 
De  Tocqueville  131 
Development  and  Repression  45- 

53 

Disapprobation  83 
Disgrace  152 
Disillusionment  226 
Division  of  Labour  117,  227 
Duties  and  Casuistry  196 

Ecce  Homo  169 

Economic  conditions  121  et  seq. 
Economy  of  powers  40-45 
Emancipation    (moral)     121,   236, 

241 

Emerson  52,  164 
Emotion  65,  91 
End  of  life  230 

Ends  130,  214,  216,  221  et  seq. 
Energy  of  character  40,  74 
Environment  69-72 
Equality  8  et  seq. 
Ethics  of  Citizenship  206,  209 
Example  159-177 
Exceptional  motives  50 
Exhortation  184 
Experiments  in  education  69 

Family  103-108 
—     traits  3 


Fear  24,  152 

Fiction  160,  166,  176,  228 

Fixed  ideas  256 

Fragmentariness   of  character   67, 

134-136 
Franchise  126 
Free  career  120 
Freedom  120,  235 
Friendship  112-116 

Generalities  185,  194 

Godwin  (W.)  167 

Greek  philosophers  43,  55,  82,  137, 

1 66,  204 

Green  (T.  H.)  237 
Guyau  64,  88 

Habit  54-68 

Health  73-79 

Heredity  1-7 

Hero-worship  168 

Hobbes  213 

Hoffding  13,  37,  252,  254 

Hygiene  (moral)  251 

Ideals  139-147,  222-232,  242-244 
Ideal  (theory  of)  233-238 
Illusions  of  the  passions  253 
Imagination  170,  176,  215 
Imitation  162  et  seq. 
Incorrigibles  154 
Independence  52 
Individuality  164,  173,  225-232 
Industrial  virtues  122 
Inequalities  7-13,  247 
Instincts  2,  27-39,  88 
Institutions  101-139 
Instruction  (moral)  112,   132,  183, 

221-223 
Intention  190  et  seq. 


Index 


261 


Intuition  145,  210,  234 

James  (Professor)   18,  30,  31,  33, 

37,  56,  61,  63,  257 
Judgment    (moral)    67,    76,    164, 

202-216 
Judgment    (moral),    education    of 

217-224 
Jurists  and  casuists  187 

Kant  1 66,  172-3 
Knowledge  (moral)  214 

Laurie  III 
Leibnitz  240 
Livelihood  117-123 
Lotze  13,  73 

Maine  (Sir  H.)  187 

Maudsley  6 

Means     and     ends    212    et    seq., 

216 

Mill  (J.  S.)  220 
Moral  Law  201,  229,  236 
Morgan  (Lloyd)  23,  30,  58 
Motive  (educational)  8  et  seq. 

Nature  73-100 
Natural  reactions  80-88 

Obligation  120 

Pain  24,  50,  148  et  seq. 
Parentage  6 

Parental  influence  104  et  seq. 
Pascal  191,  199 
Passion  48 
Passions  249-254 
Pedantry  164,  175 
Pestalozzi  183 


Philosophy   9,   129,    145    et    seq., 

231,  233-238 
Plato   55,   64,   79,   108,    121,   130, 

137,  145,  174,  238 
Pleasures  and  pains  23-29' 
Political  casuistry  197 

—    virtues  125 

Popularisation  of  philosophy  231 
Precedents  210,  217 
Precept  178-186 
Prelude  89-99 
Probabilism  193 
Procrastination  215 
Progressiveness  of  desires  38 
Prolegomena  to  Ethics  237 
Proverbial  morality  179-182 
Provincial  Letters  191,  199 
Punishment  25,  86,  148-158 

Religious  organisation  128-133 

Renunciation  47 

Repression   and  Development  45- 

53 
Rousseau  75 

Sacrifice  244 
Sanctions  148 
School  109-112 
Scott  77,  181 
Seeley  169 
Self-control  248-258 
Self-development  239-247 
Self-examination  245 
Self-sufficingness  51,  94 
Sentimentality  17,  65 
Sidgwick  (H.)  193 
Sincerity  164 
Smith  (Adam)  16,  118 
Social  heredity  70 
—    ideals  174 


262 

Social  organisation  72 
—    reform  137-139 
Socrates  in,  208 
Solitude  94,  101 
Spencer  80-88 
Spinoza    38,    74,    177,    180, 

253 

Stimulus  168,  237 
Stock  and  parentage  3 
Stout  (Prof.)  59 
Survival  of  the  fittest  10 

Temperament  13-21 
Theory  and  practice  233-238 
Town  and  Country  95-97 


Index 

Types  169,  174 

Unconsciousness  245 

Unity  of  character  67,  134-139 

—    of  ideal  229 
J.O,  —     of  virtue  166,  203 

Utilitarians  2IO,  237 
Utopias  175 

Variations  5 

Waste  of  powers  43 

Wordsworth    36,    60,    66,    89-99, 

235,  241,  247 
Worth  8 


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